[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
RIGHTSIZING GOVERNMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 5, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-2
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov,
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
58-803 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman
Jim Jordan, Ohio Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia,
Mike Turner, Ohio Ranking Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Gary Palmer, Alabama Ro Khanna, California
Clay Higgins, Louisiana Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Pete Sessions, Texas Shontel Brown, Ohio
Andy Biggs, Arizona Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Nancy Mace, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California
Pat Fallon, Texas Maxwell Frost, Florida
Byron Donalds, Florida Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Greg Casar, Texas
William Timmons, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Tim Burchett, Tennessee Emily Randall, Washington
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Suhas Subramanyam, Virginia
Lauren Boebert, Colorado Yassamin Ansari, Arizona
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Wesley Bell, Missouri
Nick Langworthy, New York Lateefah Simon, California
Eric Burlison, Missouri Dave Min, California
Eli Crane, Arizona Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Brian Jack, Georgia Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
John McGuire, Virginia
Brandon Gill, Texas
------
Mark Marin, Staff Director
James Rust, Chief Counsel for Oversight
Mitch Benzine, General Counsel
Lauren Lombardo, Deputy Policy Director
Peter Warren, Senior Advisor
Kim Waskowsky, Senior Professional Staff Member
Jon Collins, Senior Professional Staff Member
Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5074
Jamie Smith, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on February 5, 2025................................. 1
WITNESSES
----------
The Honorable Kim K. Reynolds, Governor, state of Iowa
Oral Statement............................................... 11
Mr. Thomas A. Schatz, President, Citizens Against Government
Waste
Oral Statement............................................... 13
Dr. William G. Resh (Minority Witness), Associate Professor of
Public Policy and Management, C.C. Crawford Professor in
Management and Performance, Sol Price School of Public Policy,
University of Southern California
Oral Statement............................................... 15
Written opening statements and bios are available on the U.S.
House of Representatives Document Repository at:
docs.house.gov.
INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
----------
* Letter, February 5, 2025, to Chairman Comer and Ranking
Member Connolly, re: Decorum; subnmitted by Chairman Comer.
* Article, Politico, ``Bessent tells lawmakers Musk's DOGE does
not control Treasury payments system''; submitted by Rep.
Timmons.
* OSHA Vaccine Mandate, Petition for Review; submitted by Rep.
Biggs.
* Press Release, Gov. Reynolds files lawsuit challenging Biden
Administration's vaccine mandate rule; submitted by Rep.
Biggs.
* Press Release, At USAID, Waste and Abuse Runs Deep - The
White House; submitted by Rep. Boebert.
* Article, Iowa Public Radio, ``Iowa Will Pay $4.15 Million In
Finance Authority Sex Harassment Settlements''; submitted by
Rep. Brown.
* Article, Wall Street Journal, ``Elon Musk's DOGE Allies
Search Medicare Agency Payment Systems For Fraud''; submitted
by Rep. Connolly.
* Statement for the Record, AFGE; submitted by Rep. Connolly.
* Statement for the Record, NARFE; submitted by Rep. Connolly.
* Article, ProPublica, ``Donald Trump Built a National Debt So
Big (Even Before the Pandemic)''; submitted by Rep. Crockett.
INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
----------
* Article, Politico, ``Mike Johnson's budget plan is at risk of
collapse''; submitted by Rep. Crockett.
* Article, Governing, ``Trump Moves to Abolish FEMA Shift
Disaster Response to States''; submitted by Rep. Crockett.
* Letter, February 5, 2025, to Chairman Comer and Ranking
Member Connolly, from ABC; submitted by Rep. Higgins.
* Article, New York Times, ``U.S. Agencies Fund, and Fight
with, Elon Musk''; submitted by Rep. Min.
* Article, Iowa Capital Dispatch, ``Iowa scores in 50-state
education rankings decline from years past''; submitted by
Rep. Pressley.
* Article, The Daily Iowan, ``Iowas food pantries hit record
high numbers this summer''; submitted by Rep. Pressley.
* Article, Axios Des Moines, ``Iowa's maternal death rate rises
as birthing units close''; submitted by Rep. Pressley.
* Fiscal Note, LSA, Iowa Legislative Services Agency; submitted
by Rep. Pressley.
* Statement for the Record, Founder and CEO of Cody Rouge
Action Alliance; submitted by Rep. Tlaib.
The documents listed are available at: docs.house.gov.
ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTS
----------
* Questions for the Record: to Dr. Resh; submitted by Rep.
Turner.
* Questions for the Record: to Dr. Resh; submitted by Rep.
Connolly.
* Questions for the Record: to Ms. Reynolds; submitted by Rep.
Turner.
* Questions for the Record: to Mr. Schatz; submitted by Rep.
Gosar.
These documents were submitted after the hearing, and may be
available upon request.
RIGHTSIZING GOVERNMENT
----------
Thursday, February 5, 2025
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in
the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, HVC-210, Hon. James Comer
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Comer, Jordan, Gosar, Foxx,
Grothman, Cloud, Palmer, Higgins, Sessions, Biggs, Mace,
Fallon, Donalds, Perry, Timmons, Burchett, Greene, Boebert,
Luna, Langworthy, Burlison, Crane, Jack, McGuire, Gill,
Connolly, Norton, Lynch, Krishnamoorthi, Khanna, Mfume, Brown,
Stansbury, Garcia, Frost, Lee, Casar, Crockett, Randall,
Subramanyam, Ansari, Bell, Simon, Min, Pressley, and Tlaib.
Also present: Representative Nunn.
Chairman Comer. The Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform will come to order. I want to welcome everyone here
today.
Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any
time.
I now recognize myself for the purpose of delivering an
opening statement.
This morning, we will explore how we can make the Federal
Government work better for all Americans. President Trump
promised he would eliminate Washington waste and reform the
unchecked Federal bureaucracy, and he is delivering on his
promise made to the American people. President Trump created
the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to conduct a
governmentwide audit to root out waste, fraud, and abuse and
ensure we protect taxpayer dollars. At the helm of President
Trump's effort is Elon Musk, one of the most successful
entrepreneurs ever.
For decades, and on a bipartisan basis, Members of this
Committee have lamented the inefficiency of the Federal
bureaucracy. We fought never-ending battles against the waste,
fraud, and abuse the bureaucracy generates during both
Republican and Democrat administrations. One byproduct of this
inefficiency according to GAO is the near quarter trillion
dollars in annual improper payments the government issues. But
now that President Trump is taking action to drain the swamp
and expose how the Federal Government is spending taxpayer
money, which he was elected to do, Democrats are
hyperventilating and sensationalizing it.
Over the past few days, we have heard wild claims from
Democrats that we are ``at the beginning of a dictatorship,''
and we are in a ``constitutional crisis.'' This kind of
theatrical rhetoric is exactly what the American people
rejected in November. Americans know that Washington needs
reform, and DOGE is taking inventory to bring about change and
steward taxpayer dollars entrusted to the Federal Government.
Real innovation is not clean and tidy. It is necessarily
disruptive and messy, but that is exactly what Washington needs
right now, and it is what the American people voted for in
November: a departure from the broken status quo. This
Committee intends to work in partnership with DOGE. We want to
reinforce its efforts and not blunt the momentum it is
generating for needed change to the Federal bureaucracy.
At the Oversight Committee, our core mission remains
unchanged: identifying waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal
Government and proposing solutions to make it more efficient
and effective for the American people. For this Congress, we
created a subcommittee, chaired by Marjorie Taylor Greene, that
is dedicated to working with DOGE, but I expect all of our
subcommittees will be participating in this effort to make
Washington more accountable. I am hopeful that we can find some
common ground with our Democrat colleagues to ensure the
Federal Government more efficiently and effectively serves the
American people.
I ask all my colleagues here today, who among us believes
that the Federal Government operates at peak efficiency? The
Federal Government has expanded dramatically since the early
years of our republic. There are today more than 400 executive
branch agencies and subagencies and roughly 1,000 commissions.
Most of these entities are relatively new creations. They did
not exist for most of our Nation's history. Not only has the
government grown in size and complexity, but it has also taken
on many functions once handled by the states or even the
private sector.
How did we get here? Tom Schatz, the President of Citizens
Against Government Waste and one of our witnesses today, notes
that Congress tends to respond to each new problem that arises
by creating a new program or agency, and even if the problem
goes away, the program or agency remains. Congressional
authorizing committees tend to generate these new programs and
entities, all too often without sufficient regard to similar
Federal activities occurring outside of their jurisdiction.
Over time, the expansion of entities and programs has
yielded an increasingly complex bureaucracy with a massive
amount of overlap and duplication. For instance, the Government
Accountability Office, the GAO, recently found 43 job training
programs scattered across nine different Federal agencies. That
is just one of dozens of areas of wasteful duplication the GAO
has identified across a range of Federal activities.
I hope we can learn today from Governor Kim Reynolds, who
proposed her own wide-ranging reorganization in Iowa, which the
state legislature enacted. For example, she will detail how
Iowa consolidated a host of state-level job training programs.
Iowa's reorganization also eliminated or consolidated a slew of
state agencies, commissions, and vacant job positions. Iowa's
example shows that the chief executive of any unit of
government--Federal, state, or local--is well-positioned to
propose ways to streamline that government. After all, they are
the ones who run it on a day-to-day basis.
At the Federal level, the President has considerable
authority within existing law to reorganize certain government
offices and functions. That is the case, for instance, with
respect to USAID. But some reorganizations do require changes
in law. Throughout our Nation's history, such reorganization
legislation typically originated from the White House. That is,
in part, because for much of the 20th century, Presidential
reorganization proposals requiring changes in law were granted
special consideration by Congress. I think renewing that
special authority requiring Congress to take an up or down vote
on reorganizations proposed by the President would help
facilitate needed improvements in government operations. In the
meantime, I look forward to learning more about keys to
successful reforms from our witnesses during today's hearing.
I now yield to Ranking Member Connolly for his opening
statement.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our government was
designed to be by, of, and for the American people. It is made
up of civil servants who take an oath to serve the American
people and to support and defend the Constitution. More than 1
in 3 Federal workers is employed by either the Postal Service,
ensuring every American can get mail, or the Department of
Veterans Affairs, providing care to our veterans in VA
hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes. Almost 1 in 3 Federal
workers is a veteran, and more than 85 percent live outside the
D.C. Metropolitan Area, across every state, and serving every
community in America. One in 3 Americans and half of all
American children are enrolled in a government program. Our
government provides the support these Americans are counting
on, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, Head
Start, the National School Lunch Program.
We depend on our government to safeguard our food supply
and to ensure life-saving medication is safe to consume. We
depend on our government to provide alerts about extreme
weather through the National Weather Service, which you know
all too well from the tornado that devastated your community,
Mr. Chairman, a few years ago, and to provide disaster relief
to communities where it is needed, such as in Los Angeles after
the devastating fires of the last few weeks.
This is the so-called Deep State that President Trump and
his acolytes continue to demonize, and these are the programs
and services sitting on Elon Musk's chopping block right now.
Their efforts to ``right size government'' serve no one but
themselves and fellow oligarchs who want to destroy,
deregulate, and privatize, leaving everyday Americans to foot
the bill with not only their paychecks, but even potentially
their well-being and their lives.
Just last week, the country watched in horror as a
commercial aircraft and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter
collided over the Potomac River, killing 67 people, including
several of my constituents, including young children. We know
that disasters are more likely to happen when the agencies that
ensure our safety are unsupported and under resourced. Our
Nation's air traffic control facilities were already operating
below recommended staffing levels, but 1 day before the
horrific crash, the Trump Administration sent an email to more
than 2 million Federal employees offering them a purported
financial incentive to immediately quit their jobs. Can you
imagine what might yet happen if our air traffic controllers
accept this offer to quit en mass?
This is just the tip of the iceberg. In its first 2 weeks,
the Trump Administration has ordered a hiring freeze on all
Federal civilian positions, ordered all Federal employees back
to the office full time, unless, of course, you take their
early retirement offer, and then you do not have to come to
work for 8 months, paved the way to purge more than a hundred
thousand nonpartisan career civil servants and replace them
with political loyalists, and wage war on our Nation's
commitment to civil rights by eviscerating diversity, equity,
and inclusion programs. The new Administration also ordered the
politicization of the Senior Executive Service, forced
employees to surveil and report on colleagues, and fired the
Democratic commissioners of the National Labor Relations Board
and the Equal Opportunity Commission. They administered loyalty
tests to career civil servants at the National Security
Council, granted security clearances to incoming White House
officials without vetting, reportedly violated cyber security
procurement and privacy laws by recklessly handling Federal
systems and data, and attempted a late-night purge of 17
nonpartisan Inspectors General, a brazenly illegal act that
will only provide cover for the corruption that inevitably will
ensue.
The Trump Administration also ordered a freeze of Federal
grants, loans, and other financial assistance programs.
Immediately after the funding freeze was issued, Medicaid and
Head Start reported disruptions, and some of FEMA'S online
portals were cutoff. Although the freeze was halted by a judge
and then rescinded by the Administration, we saw in only 48
hours how willing this Administration is to threaten the
health, safety, and security of Americans in service of its
unlawful and partisan agenda.
If these initiatives sound familiar, it is because so many
of them are ripped right out of the Project 2025 playbook.
Remember that deeply unpopular tome that President Trump, as
candidate Trump, desperately tried to distance himself from
during the campaign? Many of these executive orders mirror
Project 2025 proposals, and at least four prominent 2025
authors now have top positions in the Administration. Trump's
disavowal of Project 2025 was just part of the con.
President Trump and Elon Musk are using a wrecking ball to
systematically dismember the government piece by piece. The
American people deserve better, and we in Congress have a
constitutional duty to uphold the laws that we created. We must
protect the government workers, programs, and services that the
future of this country depends on and stop an unconstitutional
assault on the government.
Mr. Chairman, you correctly cited the role of Elon Musk. It
is a puzzling role for many people, certainly on this side of
the aisle and, I think, for some on yours. Who is this
unelected billionaire that he can attempt to dismantle Federal
agencies, fire people, transfer them, offer them early
retirement, and have sweeping changes to agencies without any
congressional review, oversight, or concurrence? Therefore, Mr.
Chairman, given his prominence and his importance, I move that
the Committee subpoena Elon Musk to come forward as a witness
at the earliest possible moment, and I so move.
Voice. Second.
Chairman Comer. There has been a motion and second. The
motion is not debatable.
Ms. Stansbury. Mr. Chairman, why is it not debatable? Point
of order.
Mr. Connolly. It is debatable.
Ms. Tlaib. Mr. Chair, I strike the last word.
Chairman Comer. Hold on.
Ms. Stansbury. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Casar. Mr. Chairman, why don't we want to debate Elon
Musk coming in and talking to us about his work and how he has
enriched himself with $164 billion----
Ms. Foxx. Mr. Chairman?
Ms. Greene. Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Dr. Foxx.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to table the
motion.
Mr. Chairman. There is----
Ms. Greene. I second.
Chairman Comer [continuing]. A motion to table.
Ms. Stansbury. Mr. Chairman, a point of order.
Chairman Comer. It is seconded by Mr. Higgins.
Ms. Stansbury. A point of order, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. Now, the motion is not debatable. As many
are in favor of tabling----
Ms. Stansbury. A point of order, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. A point of order. State your point.
Ms. Stansbury. Mr. Chairman, I think it is outrageous that
this Committee will not even entertain a motion----
Chairman Comer. No, that is not a point of order.
[Cross talk.]
Ms. Stansbury. If somebody who is breaking the law----
[Cross talk.]
Ms. Stansbury. And you will not even entertain----
Voice. Out of order.
Chairman Comer. Out of order.
Ms. Stansbury [continuing]. A motion to bring him in front
of the Oversight Committee? He is attacking the personal data--
--
Mr. Fallon. Mr. Chairman, this is demagoguery. This is out
of order.
[Cross talk.]
Chairman Comer. All those who are in favor of tabling,
signify----
Ms. Stansbury. Yes, let us have order in this country.
Chairman Comer. Ms. Stansbury, you are out of order. You
know you are out of order. You know the rules of this
Committee. There has been a motion and a second to table----
Ms. Stansbury. Mr. Elon Musk is out of order in
dismantling----
Ms. Foxx. I call the question.
Chairman Comer. There has been a motion and a second, a
motion by Dr. Foxx, second by Mr. Higgins to table.
All those in favor of tabling, signify by saying aye.
[Chorus of ayes.]
Chairman Comer. All those opposed, signify by saying no.
In the opinion of the Chair, the ayes have it and the
motion to table----
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, I ask for a recorded vote.
Chairman Comer. A recorded vote is ordered. We will set up
for the clerk to call the roll.
[Pause.]
Chairman Comer. We will stand at ease when we get the staff
ready to go for this.
[Pause.]
Ms. Stansbury. For those watching at home, they do not have
the votes in the room.
[Pause.]
Mr. Garcia. Mr. Chairman, speaking of efficiency of our
time, since we are just sitting here, I would love to hear from
someone why we do not want to have Mr. Musk come testify?
Chairman Comer. The gentleman is not recognized. This is a
committee hearing about eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.
You pulled a parliamentary move, which you have the right to
do. This was not expected. It was not in the agenda. We are
trying to print everything and get it ready to have the roll
call vote.
Mr. Garcia. Well, speaking of abuse, we have someone in the
Federal Government eliminating programs.
[Cross talk.]
Mr. Fallon. Mr. Chairman, he is out of order.
Mr. Garcia [continuing]. Benefiting billions of dollars
himself.
Mr. Fallon. Mr. Chairman, he is out of order. This is just
demagoguery again.
Ms. Mace. Mr. Chairman, can you control the other side?
They are out of control.
Chairman Comer. I am trying.
Ms. Stansbury. Hashtag, irony.
Ms. Crockett. Mr. Chairman, it appears the clerk is ready
for roll call.
The Clerk. Mr. Jordan?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Turner?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Gosar?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Ms. Foxx?
Ms. Foxx. Foxx votes aye to table.
The Clerk. Ms. Foxx votes aye.
Mr. Grothman?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Cloud?
Mr. Cloud. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Cloud votes aye.
Mr. Palmer?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Higgins?
Mr. Higgins. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Higgins votes aye.
Mr. Sessions?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Biggs?
Mr. Biggs. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Biggs votes aye.
Ms. Mace?
Ms. Mace. Aye.
The Clerk. Ms. Mace votes aye.
Mr. Fallon?
Mr. Fallon. I vote aye to table it.
The Clerk. Mr. Fallon votes aye.
Mr. Donalds?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Perry?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Timmons?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Burchett?
Mr. Burchett. I vote aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Burchett votes aye.
Ms. Greene?
Ms. Greene. Aye.
The Clerk. Ms. Greene votes aye.
Ms. Boebert?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mrs. Luna?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Langworthy?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Burlison?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Crane?
Mr. Crane. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Crane votes aye.
Mr. Jack?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. McGuire?
Mr. McGuire. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. McGuire votes aye.
Mr. Gill?
Mr. Gill. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Gill votes aye.
Mr. Connolly?
Mr. Connolly. Nay.
The Clerk. Mr. Connolly votes nay.
Ms. Norton?
Ms. Norton. No.
The Clerk. Ms. Norton votes no.
Mr. Lynch?
Mr. Lynch. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Lynch votes no.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi?
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Krishnamoorthi votes no.
Mr. Khanna?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Mr. Mfume?
[No response.]
The Clerk. Ms. Brown?
Ms. Brown. Ms. Brown votes no. I am sorry, yes. Yes.
Voice. Do you vote no to table?
Ms. Brown. Yes, voting no to table.
The Clerk. Ms. Brown votes no.
Ms. Stansbury?
Ms. Stansbury. I vote no to a motion that would table a
subpoena for Elon Musk.
Mr. Fallon. More demagoguery.
Ms. Stansbury. It is out of order to discuss what the
motion is? OK, guys. Cool.
Chairman Comer. It is out of order.
Ms. Mace. And you are out of control over there.
Chairman Comer. Order, order, order. All right. Let us go.
The Clerk. Ms. Stansbury votes no.
Mr. Garcia?
Mr. Garcia. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Garcia votes no.
Mr. Frost?
Mr. Frost. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Frost votes no.
Ms. Lee?
Ms. Lee. No.
The Clerk. Ms. Lee votes no.
Mr. Casar?
Mr. Casar. No on the motion to table our motion to have
Elon Musk at this Committee.
The Clerk. Mr. Casar votes no.
Ms. Crockett?
Ms. Crockett. No on giving the American people the
transparency that they deserve by bringing this oligarch before
us.
Mr. Fallon. Demagoguery again. More of this. No.
The Clerk. Ms. Crockett votes no.
Ms. Randall?
Ms. Randall. No.
The Clerk. Ms. Randall votes no.
Mr. Subramanyam?
Mr. Subramanyam. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Subramanyam votes no.
Ms. Ansari?
Ms. Ansari. No.
The Clerk. Ms. Ansari votes no.
Mr. Bell?
Mr. Bell. No.
The Clerk. Mr. Bell votes no.
Ms. Simon?
Ms. Simon. No.
The Clerk. Ms. Simon votes no.
Mr. Min?
Mr. Min. Min is a hard no.
The Clerk. Mr. Min votes no.
Ms. Pressley?
Ms. Pressley. No.
The Clerk. Ms. Pressley votes no.
Ms. Tlaib?
Ms. Tlaib. I decided to put my residents before Elon Musk,
and I am voting no.
The Clerk. Ms. Tlaib votes no.
Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Comer. I vote yes.
The Clerk. Mr. Chairman votes yes.
Mr. Timmons. Mr. Chairman, how am I recorded?
Chairman Comer. Yes. Who is recognized?
Mr. Timmons. Mr. Chairman, how am I recorded?
Chairman Comer. Oh. Has Mr. Timmons been recorded?
The Clerk. Mr. Timmons is not recorded.
Mr. Timmons. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Timmons votes aye.
Mr. Perry. Mr. Chairman, how am I recorded? Representative
Perry.
The Clerk. Mr. Perry is not recorded.
Mr. Perry. Representative Perry votes aye.
Ms. Boebert. Mr. Chairman, how is Boebert----
The Clerk. Mr. Perry votes aye.
Ms. Boebert. Mr. Chairman, how is Boebert recorded?
The Clerk. Ms. Boebert is not recorded.
Ms. Boebert. Boebert votes aye.
The Clerk. Ms. Boebert votes aye.
Mr. Burlison. Mr. Chairman, how is Burlison recorded?
The Clerk. Mr. Burlison is not recorded.
Mr. Burlison. Votes aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Burlison votes aye.
Mr. Grothman. How is Mr. Grothman recorded?
The Clerk. Mr. Grothman is not recorded.
Mr. Grothman. I will vote aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Grothman votes aye.
Mr. Gosar. Mr. Chairman, how is Mr. Gosar recorded?
The Clerk. Mr. Gosar is not recorded.
Mr. Gosar. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Gosar votes aye.
Mr. Donalds. Mr. Chairman, how is Mr. Donalds recorded?
The Clerk. Mr. Donalds is not recorded.
Mr. Donalds. Aye.
The Clerk. Mr. Donalds votes aye.
Chairman Comer. Has Mr. Jack been recorded?
The Clerk. Mr. Jack is not recorded.
Mr. Jack. Mr. Chairman, I vote aye, please.
The Clerk. Mr. Jack votes aye.
Chairman Comer. Are there any other Members who have not
been recorded?
[No response.]
Chairman Comer. Any Members who wish to change their votes?
[No response.]
Chairman Comer. Do we have a Member en route?
[No response.]
Chairman Comer. Will the clerk please tally the roll call?
The Clerk. Mr. Chairman, on this vote, the ayes are 20. The
nays are 19.
Chairman Comer. The ayes have it and the motion fails. And
I might add, Mr. Ranking Member, you all could have invited Mr.
Musk to be your Minority witness, but you all chose to have a
college professor, which is what you normally choose to have as
a witness at any hearing, and that is fine. But you all had an
opportunity to invite Elon Musk and you chose not to, so.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, could I just respond?
Chairman Comer. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you. You make a point. But from our
point of view, given the prominence Mr. Musk has been given by
President Trump in this Administration, sweeping unprecedented
powers, from our point of view, he is not a Minority witness.
He ought to be a full Committee witness because of the
prominence and the role he is playing and subject to the
oversight and scrutiny of this Committee. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. I ask unanimous consent that Representative
Nunn from Iowa be waived on to the Committee for today's
hearing for the purpose of asking questions.
Without objection, so ordered.
The next order of business is ratifying the subcommittee
roster for the 119th Congress. The clerks have distributed the
roster electronically. I ask unanimous consent that the
Committee approve the appointments and assignments as shown on
the roster.
Without objection, so--the subcommittee roster is approved.
I am pleased to welcome an expert panel of witnesses who
each bring experience and expertise that will be valuable to
today's discussion. I would first like to welcome the 43d
Governor of the great state of Iowa, Governor Kim Reynolds.
Since assuming office in 2017, Governor Reynolds has instituted
numerous reforms to reorganize state-level operations to better
serve the people of Iowa.
I would now like to recognize Representative Nunn from Iowa
to welcome the Governor here.
Mr. Nunn. Well, thank you, Chairman, and thank you very
much to this Committee for having the Governor of Iowa join us
today.
When President Trump was elected, he asked for three
things: secure our community, unleash our natural energy, and
make sure that we reform government to put money back in
taxpayers' pocket. They need look no further than what Governor
Reynolds has done with our state legislature when I served as a
Senator in Iowa. During Governor Reynolds' time, she has helped
lead us out of a massive Democrat-caused debt to be able to
balance the state's budget, to be able to provide fiscal
responsibility that rightsized our community, and provide tax
cuts to put more of Iowans' hard-earned tax dollars right back
in their britches. So, with this, Iowa is now one of the most
well-managed citizen-led democracies, Mr. Chairman, in the
world. It has resulted in a balanced budget of over $9 billion
in our general fund as well as a billion-dollar rainy day fund
with more tax returns on the way after she led these three
largest tax cuts in state history.
Governor Reynolds, we want to say thank you very much. As a
citizen of Iowa, not only are you a great Governor, but your
examples help us lead to real solutions that could address a
$36 trillion debt right here at the national level. All it
takes is one hero from the Heartland to be able to come here
and show Washington how business can get done. So, with that,
Governor Reynolds, thank you for making government efficient
again in Iowa. It is a best practice we can take in a playbook
right here in D.C. We welcome you to the Committee.
Chairman Comer. Very good. Next, we have Tom Schatz,
president of the Citizens Against Government Waste. Tom has
spent over 36 years at Citizens Against Government Waste,
identifying areas of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in
government, and this helped save taxpayers hundreds of billions
of dollars. Finally, we have William G. Resh, who is an
associate professor at the University of Southern California
Sol Price School of Public Policy. He has been a member of the
USC faculty since 2014.
I want to thank each of the witnesses for being here today,
and I look forward to you all's testimony.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witnesses will please
stand and raise their right hand.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are
about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?
[A chorus of ayes.]
Chairman Comer. Let the record show that the witnesses
answered in the affirmative. Thank you all. You may take a
seat.
We appreciate you all being here today and look forward to
your testimony. Let me remind the witnesses that we have read
your written statement, and it will appear in full in the
hearing record. Please limit your oral statement to 5 minutes.
As a reminder, please press the button on the microphone in
front of you so that it is on, and the Members can hear you.
When you begin to speak, the light in front of you will turn
green. After 4 minutes, the light will turn yellow. When the
red light comes on, your 5 minutes have expired, and we would
ask that you please wrap up.
I now recognize Governor Reynolds for her opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE KIM REYNOLDS
GOVERNOR
STATE Of IOWA
Governor Reynolds. First, let me thank Congressman Nunn for
your kind words, and thank you for your service. Chairman
Comer, Ranking Member Connolly, Members of the Committee, thank
you for giving me the opportunity to testify today.
Since this hearing is about government efficiency, I will
get right to the point. Iowa was doing DOGE before DOGE was a
thing. When I was elected to office in 2018, our tax structure
was uncompetitive. Our top income tax rate was 8.98 percent,
one of the highest in the Nation, as was our 12 percent
corporate rate. Antiquated state policies made our tax code
complex and hard to reform. Soon after President Trump signed
TCJA into law, I signed legislation that eliminated Federal
deductibility, cut rates across the board, provided for
additional reductions in future years, and reduced the number
of income tax brackets. After four more historic reforms, Iowa
taxpayers today pay a flat income tax rate of 3.8 percent. Our
corporate rate is moving to 5.5 percent, and we have eliminated
tax on retirement and inheritance income. Over 10 years, Iowans
will save an estimated $24 billion in a state with an annual
budget of about $10 billion.
But it is not enough just to cut taxes. You have to make
sure that they are sustainable, especially if you want to keep
reducing them. The growth they create helps, but you also need
to keep spending in government in check, and I have worked
closely with our General Assembly to do just that. In fact, the
Cato Institute has ranked Iowa the most fiscally responsible
state in the country for 3 years running, but that was not
always the case. When we started our alignment work in 2022,
state operations had not been reviewed for 40 years, and it
showed. Layers of bureaucracy had accumulated over decades,
expanding government beyond its core function. We were too big,
too fragmented, and too inefficient.
One example became clear during COVID, where the separation
of our public health and human services departments resulted in
both duplication and gaps in service. We merged them into the
Department of Health and Human Services in 2022, the first big
step in our work to align state government. It was a successful
proof of concept and a roadmap as we saw similar misalignment
across state government. We had 11 separate state agencies
operating workforce programs. A hundred and thirty-six
professional licensing functions were spread across 11
agencies. Our administrative code had ballooned to more than
20,000 pages with 190,000 restrictive terms. At one point, I
discovered that the state owned a cow-calf operation, and to
make matters worse, it operated at a loss.
Given our limited staff and scope of the initiative, we
partnered with an outside firm while bringing agency directors
and their staff into the discussion early, and we asked the
hard questions that bring about accountability and change. What
is the core mission of each agency? How is it funded? How is it
staffed, and what does it own? Are the programs working? How
did the structure of the agency compare to other states? Is
there duplication or misalignment?
Next, we benchmarked Iowa against our neighboring states as
well as those with similar populations and budgets. We found
that my 37-member cabinet was the most by far, while our
expenditures on a per capita basis were the third highest. In
2023, we introduced a 1,300-page bill that passed with only one
technical amendment and took effect less than a year after we
began the process. I also initiated a moratorium on new
rulemaking and ordered a comprehensive review of all rules
already on the books. Together, these actions cut 21 agencies
from my cabinet, eliminated 600 open positions, removed 1,200
regulations in year one, and identified 4,700 acres of state-
owned farmland to sell.
Nearly all licensing functions are now in one agency, and
we are currently in the process of consolidating six separate
licensing platforms into one. One agency that operated out of
10 buildings now operates out of just one. Altogether, we have
saved taxpayers $217 million in just 18 months, surpassing our
initial projections for the first 4 years, and our government
is not just smaller, it is better. Getting your medical license
recognized used to take 65 days. Now it takes 3. Unemployment
case rulings used to take 3 months. Now it takes 11 days.
Moving our motor vehicle enforcement unit into the Department
of Public Safety put a hundred more state troopers on the road.
After aligning agencies, we then streamlined our system of
boards and commissions, cutting 83 boards, about a third of the
boards and commissions. We also brought IT systems spread
across 20 different agencies into one department. And last
year, we consolidated 32 substance use and mental health
regions into seven unified behavioral health regions, resulting
in greater investment on the ground and treatment delivered to
Iowans when and where they need it. And now we are taking yet
another step. I recently announced my intention to launch an
Iowa DOGE to continue reducing the cost of government,
maximizing the return on taxpayers' investment.
Like most Americans, I am thrilled by the priority that
President Trump is placing on shrinking government and making
it work better. Not only do I believe Iowa is a model, but I am
committed to doing everything I can to help in the months
ahead, and I look forward to working with you and the Trump
Administration to do just that. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. Thank you, Governor. I now recognize Mr.
Schatz for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS A. SCHATZ
PRESIDENT
CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE
Mr. Schatz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Connolly for the opportunity to testify today. Citizens Against
Government Waste was founded following the report of the Grace
Commission under President Ronald Reagan, the last time there
was a comprehensive review of the Federal Government by the
private sector. The Commission made 2,478 recommendations that
would save $424.4 billion over 3 years. Since CAGW was created
to follow up on the Grace Commission recommendations, we have
helped save taxpayers $2.4 trillion through the implementation
of Grace Commission and other cost-saving recommendations.
The taxpayers' hard-earned money should be spent in the
most effective manner possible, following the objectives set
forth in statutes enacted by Congress and carried out by the
Executive branch. Success should be measured by whether the
intended results are being achieved. If that does not occur,
the program should be reevaluated to determine if it needs to
be modified, consolidated, or terminated. The solution should
not be to spend more money on that program, create another
program, or duplicate what the private sector is already doing.
The proper size of government can be determined after those
actions are taken, but that is, unfortunately, not how it works
now.
Despite the availability of recommendations from both
within the government, including the Congressional Budget
Office, Government Accountability Office, and Inspectors
General, as well as non-governmental sources like CAGW's
``Prime Cuts,'' which would save $5.1 trillion over 5 years,
not enough is being done. There is no lack of ideas, just a
lack of action by Congress to determine which programs are most
effective and efficient, leading to the appropriate size and
scope of the Federal Government.
President Trump campaigned on a platform of making the
government more efficient, including his promise to create a
Department of Government Efficiency. The establishment of DOGE
along with the DOGE Subcommittee and House and Senate DOGE
caucuses should lead to the adoption of policies that will
establish more effective use of taxpayer dollars and more
efficient delivery of government services. Another method to
drive efficiency would be to give the President greater
reorganization authority, as the Chairman has noted. This was
first provided in 1947 when Congress established what became
known as the Hoover Commission to develop recommendations to
increase efficiency and improve the organizational structure of
the government after World War II, and comparing the debt to
GDP ratio then and now, it is fairly close, so it is certainly
time to do this again. According to a 2012 congressional
Research Service Report, Presidents used this authority
regularly, submitting more than 100 plans between 1932 and
1984. The last President to receive reorganization authority
was Ronald Reagan, and the last one to use it was Jimmy Carter.
In May 2024, GAO released its annual report on ways to
reduce duplication, overlap, and fragmentation of programs. The
report listed 112 new items and noted that $667 billion had
been saved since the first report was issued in 2011. CAGW has
long maintained that Congress should not only hold hearings in
this Committee but across committees that have multiple
jurisdiction over a lot of the programs identified by GAO, and
then vote on those recommendations, and GAO reports about
duplicative spending provide other opportunities to improve
efficiencies.
A May 10, 2023, GAO report found 133 Federal programs
across 15 agencies that have the goal of increasing broadband
access and bridging the digital divide. These programs should
be assessed to determine which are inefficient and ineffective,
and funds should then be directed to those programs that can
deploy broadband to every remaining unserved and underserved
business and household across the country that wishes to be
connected to the internet. And broadband is one of many
programs included in CAGW's critical waste issues for the 119th
Congress, which was released this morning. The report contains
12 policy areas, including greater accountability and
transparency, budget reform, earmarks, healthcare, privacy,
technology, and telecommunications. I want to also remind the
Committee of CAGW's concerns about the U.S. Postal Service,
which we provided in testimony submitted for the record for the
December 10, 2024, Oversight hearing.
Rightsizing government is an objective on which all Members
of Congress should agree. It requires constant vigilance and
oversight to determine if Federal tax dollars are being spent
in the most effective and efficient manner and achieving
intended objectives. Increased efficiency will go a long way to
restore the public's confidence in the ability of the Federal
Government to avoid as much waste, fraud, abuse, and
mismanagement as possible.
Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you
today. I look forward to answering your questions.
Chairman Comer. Thank you. The Chair recognizes Dr. Resh,
and make sure your microphone is on.
Dr. Resh. OK. Sorry. Mr. Chairman, Ranking----
Chairman Comer. And if you do not care, pull it to you. It
is OK, yes. Now we are in business.
Dr. Resh. All right.
Chairman Comer. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM G. RESH, PH.D
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY
AND MANAGEMENT
C.C. CRAWFORD PROFESSOR IN MANAGEMENT AND PERFORMANCE
SOL PRICE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Dr. Resh. Thank you. I am so sorry. So, Mr. Chairman, thank
you for having me. Ranking Member Connolly and Committee
Members, thanks for the opportunity to address you today on the
critical issue of right-sizing government that takes place
amongst recent administrative actions that I find somewhat
troubling, not just myself, but according to the literature,
the scholarship, and observations through history that show
that these types of actions threaten integrity, effectiveness,
and stability of our Federal workforce.
For decades, debates over the size of government have
focused too narrowly on a headcount of civilian employees,
which obscures a more pressing concern: the growing
misalignment between Federal responsibilities and the
government's capacity to manage them. While the number of
civilian Federal employees has remained stable at around 2.4
million, not including postal workers, Federal spending has
increased fivefold since the 1960's. More than $759 billion was
spent on contracts in 2023 alone, and this is relatively small
in comparison to the last year of the first Trump
Administration, where estimates were as high as $1.2 trillion
in contracts, meaning that much of what government does today
is carried through private firms rather than through career
civil servants. Some estimate that there is as many as three to
four contract employees for every Federal civil servant, and
this shift has weakened oversight, increased inefficiencies,
and created accountability gaps, leaving taxpayers footing the
bill for cost overruns on contracts, delays, and policy
failures. They come not from incompetence of the civil service,
but from incapacity.
At the same time, civil servants are underpaid relevant to
their private sector counterparts, earning on average 23
percent less than similarly qualified professionals in the
private sector. The salary gap combined with mounting political
pressures and the expanding scope of government
responsibilities has made it increasingly difficult to attract
and retain top talent. This is particularly concerning given
that 70 percent of Federal employees work in national security
roles, and 80 percent serve outside of Washington providing
vital services to the communities across the country. And
despite these challenges, recent administrative actions
threaten to destabilize the civil service further by increasing
politicization and eroding the principles of professional
nonpartisan workforce.
The so-called policy/career reclassification would strip
job protections from tens of thousands of career civil
servants, allowing them to be dismissed and replaced with
political appointees at-will, and this risks creating a climate
of fear and self-censorship, where professionals hesitate to
provide objective, evidence-based advice for fear out of
political retaliation. History and research are clear.
Governments that rely on merit-based civil service systems
perform better. They are less prone to corruption and deliver
more effective public services. By contrast, increased
politicization, substituting experienced professionals with
short-term political loyalists reduces efficiency, complicates
long-term planning, and increases the risk of policy failures.
Beyond inefficiency, politicization weakens the very
mechanisms that ensure accountability and integrity in
government. Civil servants are often the last line of defense
against waste, fraud, and abuse, ensuring that government funds
are spent wisely and in accordance with the law. When
experienced professionals are replaced by individuals selected
for political loyalty rather than expertise, government
oversight erodes and leads to costly mismanagement and a
decline in public trust.
This dynamic is not theoretical. It has played out in past
administrations and has been extensively documented in
research. Countries that move toward greater political control
over bureaucracies see decline in effectiveness, increased
regulatory capture, and greater difficulty in responding to
crises. Conversely, nations that invest in independent
professional civil service see better policy outcomes, stronger
economic growth, and higher public confidence.
The U.S. has long benefited from a stable, merit-based
civil service that has helped sustain democracy through times
of war, economic upheaval, and national crises. Attempts to
weaken the system, whether it is through mass firings, loyalty-
based appointments, or the dismantling of institutional
safeguards do not lead to a more effective government. Instead,
they result in greater instability, inefficiency, and
governance failures that harm all Americans.
In conclusion, any discussion of right-sizing government
must grapple with the structural transformation that has
already been underway. Rather than reducing the number of
career civil servants or subjecting them to politically
motivated purges, we should reinvest in the workforce to ensure
that government functions effectively, remains accountable, and
serves the public interest. The evidence overwhelmingly
supports one clear lesson; that is, strengthening, not
weakening the civil service has the surest path to effective
and democratic government that works for all of us. Thank you
very much.
Chairman Comer. Thank you. We will now begin our questions.
The Chair recognizes Dr. Gosar from Arizona.
Mr. Gosar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are here today to
tame the labyrinth of the Federal bureaucracy. That is why I
was elected, and, frankly, that is why President Trump was
reelected this past November. More responsible government
spending means less need for taxation on the American people.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have claimed cuts
to waste, fraud, and abuse will include cuts to Social Security
and Medicare. However, promoting efficiency and cutting
wasteful spending actually protects Social Security and
Medicare by ensuring available and continued funding. And if
they have any more doubts, I would invite them to sign on to my
LASSO Act that actually puts these decisions out of the public
arm and into the public's domain.
When Elon Musk acquired Twitter, now X, in 2022, he fired
about 6,000 employees, or nearly 80 percent of his workforce,
but there was no lapses in X's management, while perhaps only
less community notes and less removal of lawful political
speech. Elon Musk trimmed the fat on X, and we have the
opportunity to do the same here in Washington.
Governor Reynolds, not only did you lead a successful
state-level government reorganization, but you did it twice.
Congratulations. My question to you is, how did you identify
waste, and were members of the state legislature empowered to
also identify those areas with you?
Governor Reynolds. Thank you for the question. It was
definitely a collaborative effort. It started with the tax
cuts, so we did comprehensive reform there. And as a manner to
sustain it, then we needed to look at the overall government.
When you coupled COVID on top of that and the inefficiencies
that I saw in our response to COVID, it led us to start looking
at processes in the state government, and they were commonsense
changes, too.
When we were looking at licensing, when we were looking at
IT spread across 20 different agencies--I mean, the list went
on and on--it made sense to restructure it. So, what we did is,
first of all, we brought our agencies in and their team and had
them do an overall review of their operation, asking the tough
questions that really leads to accountability and change. And
then on top of that, because we are a small team, we also
brought in an outside consultant to help us with the
comparisons and help manage it, and then we worked closely with
the legislature for any ideas that they may have. We spent a
lot of time walking through the bill in its entirety. When we
were working with our agencies, that gave us an opportunity to
understand where some of the pushback might be, so we could
also get in front of that with the answers to the questions
that might be posed from realigning a state government.
But it has made us more efficient. It has made us more
effective. It is common sense. I think the data is proving out.
We are seeing it every day, so we will have data to actually
point to on how we are more efficient and more effective. And
we are taking dollars from the administration and from the
bureaucracy, and we are actually putting it into programs,
getting it on the ground and putting it into people. So, it has
been very efficient from that perspective as well.
Mr. Gosar. Well, I noticed you sold state-owned land to
eliminate waste and generate revenue. Is that correct?
Governor Reynolds. Yes. We had; I think it was about 5,400
acres that we were able to sell. I had a cow-calf operation
with the Department of Corrections. We were not aware of that.
Then to come to find out we were operating at a loss. You know,
we need to get back to the core function of government, and as
the bureaucracy continues to grow, the scope also grows with
it, and that is when we start to see the inefficiencies.
Mr. Gosar. Well, I tell you what. That is music to my soul
because I have got a HEARD Act. It mimics what Harry Reid did
in Southern Nevada. He found out that Las Vegas was surrounded
by BLM. He could not grow it.
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Mr. Gosar. And so, what they did is they found out that the
Federal Government has the propriety to look at what the land
is used for, does it have a purpose, and if not, it has to be
sold. So, I think there is a great opportunity there.
Mr. Schatz, I want to touch base with you in regards to,
the 2024 ``Prime Cuts'' report recommends that the National
Park Service, Forest Service, and BLM suspend Federal land
purchases until they effectively manage their currently owned
land. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Do you generally agree
that selling public land to states and local communities would
eliminate unused assets, generate revenue, and provide an
overall benefit to the Federal Government and to local
communities?
Mr. Schatz. Yes, Congressman, and it would generate about
$15 billion over 3 years, so there is a lot of land out there.
In fact, the government probably does not even know what it
owns.
Mr. Gosar. Yes.
Mr. Schatz. And it needs to get it done.
Mr. Gosar. The one thing I really want to make a note of,
and I am running out of time here, is the National Emergencies
Act. We have spent $12 trillion since Bill Clinton, and it is
about one-third of our national debt. I would love to work with
you in regard to cleaning these up, cleaning them out, and
getting some aspects and assets back to the people. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the Ranking Member for 6 minutes.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
your consideration. Governor Reynolds, welcome, and your story
is a very impressive one. I was the Chairman of a county of 1.2
million people, one-third of your population, and what you talk
about resonates with somebody like me, hands-on, trying to make
sure things work.
Governor Reynolds. Right.
Mr. Connolly. Iowa has a population, as I understand, of
3.24 million people, and you have got a state workforce of
16,700 full-time employees. Is that correct? That is correct?
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. Now, of course, with respect to the Federal
Government, we are talking about 2.4 million, so it is not only
a matter of scale. I mean, we are just talking about very
different kinds of entities. That does not mean we cannot learn
from a state like Iowa, but I do think that the challenges we
face at the Federal level are formidably different than what we
face in my county or your state. As I said, it does not mean we
cannot learn from it, at all.
And I listened carefully to you. Is my understanding
correct that in order to effectuate the reforms you proudly
championed today, you put on the payroll your wealthiest donor
who came in and decided what agencies to abolish, which cabinet
members were to go, how many people were to be fired, and other
kinds of decisionmaking that was imbued with him or her? Is
that how you did it in Iowa, your wealthiest donor took that
lead?
Governor Reynolds. No, that is a complete misstatement, and
first of all, we did it without any layoffs whatsoever. We made
that commitment when we moved into our realignment.
Mr. Connolly. No layoffs?
Governor Reynolds. Absolutely no layoffs. I was able to
eliminate 600 open positions that had been open for over a
year, but through the transition process and what we have been
able to accomplish, we did that right now without laying off
any state employees.
Mr. Connolly. And excuse me, because my time is limited,
Governor. I do not mean to be interrupting you. So, the idea
that your wealthiest donor kind of shepherded all of this is
false?
Governor Reynolds. That is false.
Mr. Connolly. That is false, and you did not lay off
people. You tried, in fact, to move people around, or?
Governor Reynolds. No, we made that commitment at the
beginning of the process.
Mr. Connolly. You made a commitment to that?
Governor Reynolds. First of all, these were commonsense
changes. It was a realignment. It was----
Mr. Connolly. Got it.
Governor Reynolds. [continuing]. Highlighting the cabinet
members that I thought should be in the cabinet and making
government operate more efficiently and reduce the amount of
time.
Mr. Connolly. I think that is a very Iowan concept, too:
commonsense.
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. And I like it. It is a non-ideological
approach to governance.
Professor Resh, would it be fair to say that what you have
heard from Governor Reynolds is distinctly different from what
we are experiencing in the first 15 days of the Trump
Administration with Elon Musk allegedly at the helm? And please
speak loudly into that microphone so we can hear you.
Dr. Resh. Yes.
Mr. Connolly. Yes.
Dr. Resh. Quite simply, yes.
Mr. Connolly. Very different?
Dr. Resh. It seems different, yes.
Mr. Connolly. And would you say that it is unprecedented,
unusual, and maybe even of dubious legality that so much
authority and power has been vested in one individual who is an
outside billionaire with no government experience, other than
benefiting from government contracts, to wield this kind of
power and influence and be firing people, laying off people,
threatening to dismantle whole agencies, something that
apparently Governor Reynolds actually actively tried to avoid,
to get political buy-in and to try to create a spirit of
cooperation?
Dr. Resh. It seems to me that the actions that are being
promulgated by DOGE lack legal authority. I am not a legal
scholar. I am a scholar of executive politics and public
management. But from what I can tell, this violates several
legal authorities that are granted by Congress, not
unilaterally by the President.
Mr. Connolly. Governor Reynolds made a point of saying she
worked with the legislature to effectuate the reforms, which
always sounds to me like a pretty good idea. You want to work
with your legislators. Here in Washington, there are laws on
the books, you know. For example, you may want to dismantle the
Agency for International Development, but Congress created AID,
that agency, in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. And it
seems to me that if you want to dismantle it or fold it into
another agency, you got to come back to Congress and amend that
Act. Do you think that is a fair statement?
Dr. Resh. I think that is a fair statement.
Mr. Connolly. And likewise, when it comes to freezing
funding for Federal agencies, the Impoundment Control Act of
1974 governs impoundment, and the Supreme Court ruling during
the Nixon years made it very clear that the power of the purse
is exclusively vested in the legislative branch of Congress
under the Constitution of the United States. Is that a fair
statement?
Dr. Resh. It is a fair statement, and it is the standing
position of the courts.
Mr. Connolly. I am sorry?
Dr. Resh. I said it is a fair statement, and it is the
standing position of the courts.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Ms. Mace from South Carolina for 5 minutes.
Ms. Mace. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There has been a lot of
pearl clutching over the last several days from my colleagues
across the aisle on Donald Trump, Secretary Rubio, the
Department of Government Efficiency's plan to reorganize the
U.S. Agency for International Development, or, as we all now
know, USAID. They are screaming about Elon Musk over there,
but, hey, George Soros and his boy are OK. You know, they
scream that we are all a threat to democracy when they have
been systematically dismantling democracy before our eyes. They
have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar, and there
is no going back. So, I tell my colleagues across the other
side, I will take your salty tears and sit right back down.
USAID has long strayed from its mission to effectively and
efficiently administer aid to advance American interests. USAID
has become rotten to its core, sacrificing the prudent use of
taxpayer dollars at the altar of advancing radical centers for
social and political agendas abroad, from discriminatory DEI
initiatives to extreme gender ideology, to marginalize real,
bona fide biological women. For decades, while homeless
veterans sleep on our streets, our communities rebuild from
natural disasters, and American families struggle to get by,
USAID has pillaged and plundered the American treasury,
essentially lighting American taxpayer dollars on fire, funding
some of the dumbest, I mean, stupidest, just dumbest
initiatives imaginable, all supported by the left, and that is
why their party is crumbling.
Today, I am going to expose some of the initiatives USAID
has funded over the years and ask each of you a yes or no
question--if you believe these expenditures of American
taxpayer dollars put America First. So, it will be ``yes'' or
``no.''
USAID awarded $2 million to strengthen trans-led
organizations to deliver gender-affirming health care in
Guatemala. So, to each of you this morning, does this advance
the interests of American citizens paying for trannies in
Guatemala to the tune of $2 million? Yes or no? Governor?
Governor Reynolds. No.
Mr. Schatz. No.
Dr. Resh. I have no position.
Ms. Mace. Of course you do not. OK. USAID awarded over
$750,000 to fund alleviating loneliness among migrant garment
workers in India. Does this advance America's interests?
Governor?
Governor Reynolds. No.
Mr. Schatz. No.
Dr. Resh. I have no position.
Ms. Mace. USAID awarded $1.5 million for providing a
gender-sensitive response to migration at the Venezuelan
border. Does this advance America's interests? Governor?
Governor Reynolds. No.
Mr. Schatz. No.
Dr. Resh. I have no position.
Ms. Mace. Does this advance the interest? OK. So, USAID
awarded $4.3 million on October 1, 2023, to a group to fund
comprehensive health services for men having sex with other men
in South Africa. Does this advance the interests of American
citizens? Governor?
Governor Reynolds. No.
Mr. Schatz. No.
Dr. Resh. I have no position.
Ms. Mace. I bet you do not. OK. USAID awarded $1.5 million
to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia's
workplaces and business communities by promoting economic
empowerment and opportunity for LGBTQI+ people in Serbia. Does
this advance America's interests?
Governor Reynolds. No.
Mr. Schatz. No.
Dr. Resh. No position.
Ms. Mace. You have no idea, right? OK. USAID awarded over
$70,000 to a group to deliver a live musical event to promote
the U.S. and Irish shared values of diversity, equity,
inclusion, and accessibility. Does this advance the interests
of America?
Governor Reynolds. No.
Mr. Schatz. No.
Dr. Resh. No position.
Ms. Mace. No position or no clue? OK. USAID awarded $1.5
million to fund strengthening community support structures to
upscale LGBT rights advocacy in Jamaica. Does this advance our
interests?
Governor Reynolds. No.
Mr. Schatz. No.
Dr. Resh. No position.
Ms. Mace. USAID awarded $28 million to a group to
facilitate the economic insertion of Venezuelan migrants and
refugees in Peru and Ecuador. Does this advance our interests?
Governor Reynolds. No.
Mr. Schatz. No.
Dr. Resh. No position.
Ms. Mace. OK. USAID awarded $17.5 million to fund voluntary
medical male circumcision overseas. Does this advance America's
interest?
Governor Reynolds. No.
Mr. Schatz. No.
Dr. Resh. No position.
Ms. Mace. I do not know what circumcision overseas has to
do with America First either. USAID awarded nearly $150,000 to
fund HIV prevention services targeting men who have sex with
men and transgender. Does this advance America's interests?
Governor Reynolds. No.
Mr. Schatz. No.
Dr. Resh. No position.
Ms. Mace. Yes. Unfortunately, I am limited to 5 minutes,
but these are the programs Democrats are so desperate to save,
our foreign assistance system is badly broken, and this ends
now. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, parliamentary inquiry.
Chairman Comer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Connolly. The gentlelady has used a phrase that is
considered a slur in the LGBTQ community and the transgender
community. Let me please finish without an interruption.
Ms. Mace. Tranny, tranny, tranny. I do not really care. You
want penises in women's bathrooms, and I am not going to have
it.
Chairman Comer. OK.
Ms. Mace. No. Thank you. This is disgusting.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Comer. Let the gentleman state his parliamentary
inquiry.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you. To me, a slur is a slur, and here
in the Committee, a level of decorum requires us to try,
consciously, to avoid slurs. You just heard the gentlelady,
actually, actively, robustly repeat it, and I would just ask
the Chairman that she be counseled--that we ought not to be
engaged--we can have debate and policy discussion without
offending human beings who are our fellow citizens. And so, I
would ask, as a parliamentary inquiry, whether the use of that
phrase is not, in fact, a violation of the decorum rule.
Ms. Mace. Mr. Chairman, I am not going to be counseled by a
man over men in women's spaces or men who have mental health
issues dressing as women. I am not being counseled by some guy
over that.
Mr. Connolly. My inquiry is to the Chairman. Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Comer. OK. Order. The inquiry is about decorum.
Decorum is at the discretion of the Chair.
Ms. Mace. That is mansplaining, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. I will be honest with the Ranking Member. I
am not up to date on my politically correct LGBTQ terminology.
We will look into that and get back with you on that. I do not
know what is offensive and what is not. I do not know much
about pronouns or offensive terms and that.
Mr. Connolly. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Mace. Mr. Chairman, we do not have to anymore.
Mr. Connolly. So, I thank the Chair for his willingness to
further engage in this matter.
Chairman Comer. All right. The Chair now recognizes Ms.
Norton from Washington, DC, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is only the
second oversight hearing this Congress. The first one was about
denigrating Federal employees. This one is about denigrating
Federal employees, too.
The Trump Administration, including the Trump shadow
government, seems intent on dismantling much of the Federal
Government in violation of the Constitution, statutes, and
regulations. The Administration has relentlessly attacked
Federal employees, subjecting them to chaos and fear. The
Administration has imposed a hiring freeze, offered deferred
resignation, fired employees, put employees on leave,
effectively established Schedule F, and ended telework and
remote work. Our two hearings so far are designed to lay the
predicate to gut the nonpartisan Federal civil service and to
convert a significant portion of the remaining civil service
into political appointees.
Federal workers deserve praise for their expertise,
dedication, and service, not derision. Thousands of civil
Federal servants have given their lives in the line of duty for
the country. Instead of attacking Federal employees, this
Committee should be considering bills to support the Federal
workforce, such as my bill to combat Federal pay compression or
my bill to make permanent the free identity protection coverage
that Congress required OPM to temporarily provide to
individuals whose Social Service [sic] numbers were potentially
compromised during the OPM data breaches. As I said at our last
hearing, this Committee can do better for the American people,
and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Connolly. Will the gentlelady please yield to the
Ranking Member?
Ms. Norton. I will be glad to.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes the Ranking Member.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the Chairman.
Chairman Comer. It was 2 minutes and 10 seconds.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the gentlelady. So, Dr. Resh, could
you elaborate just a little bit more on your answer to the
previous question about, sort of, unelected, superannuated
appointees who are not subject to the advice and consent of the
U.S. Senate and have arrogated apparently to themselves, either
with or without the acquiescence or consent of the President
himself, enormous powers? I mean, could you elaborate a little
bit on that, on how unprecedented that is, and what are the
dangers? What could go wrong with that? Why should we be
concerned? And please speak louder into that microphone.
Dr. Resh. Yes, sir. So, the problems that can arise from a
lack of accountability are many. Particularly in the form of
DOGE, we see a person that is leading it that is entangled in
billions upon dollars of Federal contracts, has an empire that
is regulated across various industries, across various
agencies. Having a person that is potentially influencing where
workforce cuts might take place, without any transparency as to
the decisionmaking, potentiates conflicts of interest,
particularly in those domains in which he is regulated or in
which he has contracts with various agencies.
Mr. Connolly. And interestingly enough, you heard Governor
Reynolds, a testimony about her process. This is not how they
did it in Iowa.
Dr. Resh. No, I am very impressed with her reforms, but it
had nothing to do with politically connected individuals
deciding.
Mr. Connolly. And one of the cautions I heard you say is we
have got to also be concerned about conflicts of interest when
that same individual, imbued with all of these powers, has
government contracts.
Dr. Resh. I would say that across the contract state, there
are laws, but they are very weak in terms of regulating the
extent to which political donations can be made by large
contractors.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Grothman from
Wisconsin.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you much. A lot of other people have
weighed in on Mr. Musk, so I felt I should weigh in just as
briefly. In another committee, we are waiting on an opportunity
to publicize a study showing that on this transgender
lifestyle, the more you talk about it, the more you get. And if
you do not talk about it, like they do not in Europe, there are
not that many people going into it, and, therefore, I would
like to thank Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump. When they found out that
we were talking about this stuff or apparently promoting it in
other countries, they slammed the brakes on that agency really
quick, which was, I think, the right and moral thing to do. And
it is unfortunate the U.S. Government was apparently engaging
in activity that would increase the people choosing that
lifestyle.
Now, I was in the state legislature for many years before I
got here, Governor Reynolds, and, quite frankly, one of the
reasons I ran for this job is, again and again, I wanted to do
things at the state level, and was told I could not because it
was Federal law. I wonder if you can give us some examples of
things, and whether it be health care, education, welfare, what
have you, or you wish you could do things in Iowa, but cannot
do them because of Federal mandates.
Governor Reynolds. The list is long, especially as we have
aligned government and become more efficient. You know, I would
say the lack of accountability was what I saw in the complete
review that we did. We reviewed over 800 agency programs in
which there was not one KPI, there was not one metric, there
was not one accountability measure tied to any of it whatsoever
with the existing programs. And so, nothing comes before me now
from my agency, my cabinet, without a KPI and a metric tied to
it if they want to, you know, continue the program or if they
want to add to it.
But I can talk about a couple different things. SNAP would
be one example. You know, we have an antiquated system, as does
a lot of the governments, especially the Federal Government.
And right now, we have about 500 workers that are doing
eligibility, manually, validating it from a dozen different
points. And we have, of course, have a fairly high error rate,
of which there are fines attached to a timely delay, a
timeliness and error rate. I have asked FNS for just the
opportunity to issue an RFP so I can get a system that would
allow me to use technology to collect all of the different data
points, reduce the timeline and that error rate and the fines
that my state is being charged. And I have been waiting for
over a year to get an approval just on an RFP, to go out and
select a vendor to be able to offer that, and then it has to go
back to them for a sign off on that.
CMS is just another nightmare. We have waited up to 3 years
to get managed care rate approvals. I have a Thrive platform
that I am trying to put in place, which is a public-private
partnership, which would allow faith-based organizations and
nonprofits to help Iowans in need, to partner with what we are
doing at the government, at the state level. And we have,
again, waited over a year just to simply get them to sign off
on the RFP so that I can implement technology and serve my
constituents, especially those in need, in a better manner,
and, you know, we see this time and time again, especially with
CMS. Just the delay in getting the answers, there is a cost of
money in that, and we are not able to effectively serve the
citizens in our reflective states.
Mr. Grothman. If you could, are there ways you would change
these programs that you feel would reduce dependency, reduce
the number of people on the programs, but cannot because of
Federal law?
Governor Reynolds. Well, I cannot even move forward. I
mean, I am getting fined because I cannot aggregate the data.
We collect a lot of data at the state level, but we cannot
aggregate it, and I am trying to stand up a system that would
allow us to do that, and they are preventing us from doing that
by simply signing off on an RFP so that we can move forward.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Give me----
Governor Reynolds. A block grant would be another example.
Department of Education is a great example of how we could do
things differently with the ESSA title funding formula. There
are 10 different streams. They all have different funding
formulas. They all have different requirements. They all have
different outcomes. And if we could streamline those into one
formula with consistency across it, and block grant that back
to the states, and give us the flexibility to be innovative and
to really meet the various needs in our states. They are all
different. We can do that.
Mr. Grothman. Do you think you could get people out of the
special education system quicker if you have more flexibility?
Governor Reynolds. Yes, so that is another example. We
could tie the two together, and it could be based on the state
plan. The AEA, Area Agency Educators, are what run the special
education program in our state. It is about $530 million with
state and Federal funding. Not one person that I talked to, not
a school board, not a teacher, not anybody in the AEA system
could tell me the cost of providing a service. I mean, so, when
you continue to grow government, those types of questions,
those types of analysis, are not even taking place. They just
need more money, or they want to know if they have spent all of
it.
There is never an evaluation that is done. There is never
an accountability, there is no transparency, and that is why we
are getting the results that we are getting. Our scores are
horrible, and when I try to bring some accountability to the
system, shut down. I mean, so it is happening at the state and
Federal level, but if we can work collectively together, I
think we can get the results that we are looking for.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you very much. A big mistake whenever
we do anything on a Federal level.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Lynch from
Massachusetts.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As former Chairman of
the Subcommittee on National Security on this Committee many
years ago, and as a Member for many years as well, we had the
opportunity to work extensively with Members on both sides of
the aisle, Mr. Grothman and others, to conduct oversight of our
Federal security clearance process. We had a very bad incidence
in the 2018 timeframe where our security clearance process that
was conducted at OPM was hacked by the Chinese. And so, they
were able to get the identities of anybody who had appeared to
try to get security clearance. It was a major intelligence
failure. So, in 2020, Members on this Committee and others,
especially the Intelligence Committee, made an agreement that
we shifted that responsibility over to DOD. And so, since then,
since 2020, the Department of Defense--it is called the
Counterintelligence and Security Agency, DCSA--has been
conducting those security clearance applications, and they have
been doing very, very well compared to what was going on
before.
The problem is this, that on day one of his new term,
President Trump took an end-run around our entire national
security apparatus by allowing White House counsel to grant new
White House officials immediate security clearance at the top
secret and sensitive compartmental information level, even
though many of those individuals were not treated with the
traditional vetting by the FBI. So, top secret SCI security
clearance allows individuals to access classified intelligence
sources and methods. So, these are some of our Nation's most
sensitive pieces of information, which could cause
exceptionally grave damage to U.S. national security and to our
intelligence personnel and others who cooperate with them if it
was exposed.
Dr. Resh, to make matters worse, Mr. Trump has now given
Elon Musk and his so-called DOGE team unfettered access to
Treasury Department, and Office of Personnel Management, and
other Federal agencies and systems that manage personnel files,
confidential payment systems, and highly classified
information. What are the risks? What are the risks of
sidestepping the existing security clearance process run by DOD
that has worked very, very well to protect our intelligence
personnel?
Dr. Resh. I think some of the risks are substantial,
particularly given the extent to which this data could be used
in training foundational models that Mr. Musk and his team
could use to do this data analysis. I have no idea, actually no
one has any idea exactly what servers are being used with the
access to this data. There is privileged information that the
DOGE team could use to position themselves or their private
interests as players in government contracts for satellite
deployment, defense technology, even orbital logistics. He
could leverage his ties to Trump to position his own
foundational model, xAI, to have exclusive access to protected
individual government data to train the models that are really
black box, could wield the advantage to undercut competition,
shape the AI landscape in fairly frightening ways, if this
private individual information and government protected data is
being used to train those models.
Now, this is speculation, pure speculation because I do not
know, and neither do you, and frankly, no one does. But beyond
creating better-performing models, exclusive access to
government data would give significant edge in securing long
term contracts----
Mr. Lynch. But, Dr. Resh?
Dr. Resh. Yes.
Mr. Lynch. Beyond the speculation, why is it important that
sensitive information is only handled by those who have been
vetted and granted access to that information?
Dr. Resh. Well, for exactly these reasons, so that it
cannot be used for corruptible purposes, and, yes, there are
positions in place for our Federal career employees to pass
through various ethics and conflicts of interest thresholds
that SGEs just simply do not have.
Mr. Lynch. OK. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. I yield
back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Dr. Foxx from North Carolina.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I thank
our witnesses for being here today to talk about this important
subject.
Governor Reynolds, as you are aware, our sprawling Federal
Government has over 400 executive branch agencies and
subagencies and nearly 1,000 Federal boards and commissions. We
must reduce the burden and cost of the Federal Government. With
your government reorganization reforms in the state of Iowa,
you were able to reduce the number of cabinet level departments
and eliminate many state boards and commissions. What was the
impact of your reorganization effort?
Governor Reynolds. Well, thank you for that question. I
appreciate it very much. Actually, just the efficiencies and
just the culture in state government--I now have a cabinet that
communicate, that work together, that come up with innovative
ideas on their own. And, you know, with the 37-member cabinet,
I would not know the people that were in the room, and it is
just not manageable. Thirty-seven direct reports is not
manageable. And so, to be able to streamline the cabinet and to
lay out a vision and get them excited about the direction that
we are taking the state. And whether it is the time that it
takes to get a physician's license--it went from 65 days to 1--
whether it talks about when you are getting a building permit--
you used to have to go to three different agencies, now you go
to one--to be able to have IT all in one department. When that
cyberattack hit with CrowdStrike, because we had all of our IT
in one agency, we were able to get the state of Iowa back up
and going shortly after lunch, and some of the states were out
for weeks and businesses. So, we are more responsive. We are
more effective. We are serving citizens better.
And again, not only are we returning taxpayer dollars back
to our citizens and continuing to reduce the tax burden on
them, but we are also utilizing those dollars in a better
manner. We are reducing the administrative cost. When you add
Federal administrative costs, and then when you have three
different agencies that you are running through, each one of
them are taking an administrative cost off of the top. And so,
by consolidating and realigning, that puts that money back into
the programs, back into the ground, and back into serving
Iowans, and so, and it also gives me the visibility now that I
have into the various agencies because of the reduction. We can
continue to get better, and we are continuing to make changes,
and we will, and a lot of those are coming directly from the
cabinet.
Ms. Foxx. Let me follow up a little bit. Given your
successful reorganization, what advice do you have for the
Trump Administration to reduce the cost and size of the
government, and what advice do you have for Congress to work
with the Trump Administration to do this?
Governor Reynolds. Well, do not buy into the fact that you
cannot do it. You can do it, and it needs to be done. You know,
there is just so much waste at all levels of government, at the
Federal, at the state, and at the local levels, and we are all
serving the same constituency. We need to do it better. Every
time there is a duplication, that is a cost to the taxpayer.
So, we need to think about it holistically, and we need to
think about how we can streamline the way in which we are
providing these services. I am a big advocate for block grants
back to the states. Again, I think that, you know, reduces a
lot of the overhead, a lot of the bureaucracy. It streamlines.
It takes an army of people to manage the Federal programs that
are coming in, especially with Department of Education, and
then the school districts, also, have to take people off the
line aside on really educating our students, and they are doing
compliance instead of working on instruction, so it makes us
all better.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Governor, for being a shining light
for us.
Mr. Schatz, the Grace Commission, created by President
Reagan in 1982, claimed that if its recommendations were
followed, the national debt would have been $1.9 trillion by
the year 2000. Its recommendations were not followed. Instead,
the debt reached $5.6 trillion in 2000 and skyrocketed to over
$36 trillion today. How can President Trump, DOGE, and Congress
ensure that today's government reorganization and reform
efforts actually get implemented and start reducing our massive
debt?
Mr. Schatz. Thank you, Representative Foxx. The Grace
Commission did save money. President Reagan had $100 billion
immediately by executive action in 10 years, $240 billion, and
again over time, $2.4 trillion from the Grace Commission and
other cost-saving recommendations by CAGW. It takes Congress
and the executive branch working together, 400 agencies, a
thousand commissions. That is far too much. The budget has only
been balanced 5 times in the last 50 years. Think about that.
If you are a family and you only balanced your budget 5 times
in 50 years, you are pretty much broke, and whatever and
however it gets done, something needs to be done. And it may
not be comfortable for a lot of people, but it really is time
to move forward quickly, because if we do not, it is our
children and grandchildren that will suffer. Social Security is
already spending more than it takes in, so a lot of examples of
what needs to be fixed and quickly.
Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Schatz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Krishnamoorthi from Illinois.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Mr.
Schatz. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump said on August 15,
2024, ``Grocery prices have skyrocketed. When I win, I will
immediately bring down prices starting on day one.'' You do not
dispute that, right?
Mr. Schatz. That was the statement, yes.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Unfortunately, the price of groceries
and eggs have only risen since Donald Trump took office.
According to the USDA, the wholesale cost of a dozen eggs has
increased from $6.59 on Inauguration Day, until now it is
$7.53, a 14-percent increase. Again, you do not dispute that,
right?
Mr. Schatz. No.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. I assume you are not happy with this
particular increase either, right?
Mr. Schatz. No. I wish the bird flu was not around, but it
is.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Well, I am glad you brought that up.
According to PBS and Axios, some of the reasons for high
grocery prices and high egg prices are avian flu and recalls
related to salmonella and listeria. You do not dispute that,
right?
Mr. Schatz. Correct.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. My staff went back and checked the
hundreds of executive orders that have been issued by Donald
Trump, and yet, not a single one has mentioned the words
``avian flu.'' You do not dispute that, right?
Mr. Schatz. As far as I know, that is correct.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And not one has mentioned shutting down
salmonella, right?
Mr. Schatz. I do not know if you can shut down salmonella,
but I guess so.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Or combating salmonella?
Mr. Schatz. Again, if you say so.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And not one has mentioned listeria?
Mr. Schatz. Again, if you say so.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Well, I do not see a single executive
order that will do anything to address high grocery prices or
egg prices. This hearing is about rightsizing the Federal
workforce. I think we should rightsize the cost of eggs, Mr.
Schatz.
Governor Reynolds, in your testimony, you said that the
state of Iowa hired an ``outside firm'' to assist you with your
efforts to modernize Iowa state government, right?
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Of course, at no time did you allow
this outside firm to ever control Iowa state payment systems,
right?
Governor Reynolds. Correct.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And of course, you did not at any time
give this outside firm access to the private personal
information of all Iowans in the state's payment systems, did
you?
Governor Reynolds. No.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Of course not. Let us talk about what
has happened with DOGE for a moment. According to this letter,
which was sent by the Treasury Department, Jonathan Blum of the
Treasury Department, a DOGE affiliate of Elon Musk, is now ``a
special government employee with access to the coded data of
the Fiscal Services Payment System.'' This is the most
important Federal payment system in the Nation, responsible for
making $6 trillion in payments every year to hundreds of
millions of Americans. And just moments ago, Politico just
disclosed that DOGE now has access to all Medicare and Medicaid
payments as well. Now, Elon Musk is in charge of DOGE, Governor
Reynolds. He has not been confirmed by the Senate to any
position in the Federal Government, right?
Governor Reynolds. No.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And he has not been elected by anybody
to anything, right?
Governor Reynolds. Correct.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. He has not, to your knowledge, given a
financial disclosure to Congress, correct?
Governor Reynolds. Not that I am aware of.
[Poster]
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Ma'am, I want to bring your attention
to something very disturbing that Musk just recently tweeted
out. As we see at this visual, he said, ``The DOGE team is
rapidly shutting down illegal payments to Lutheran Family
Services.'' Musk retweeted a post from Michael Flynn likening
Lutheran Family Services to ``a money laundering operation.''
Governor, you do not believe that the Lutheran Church or
Lutheran Family Services is a money laundering operation,
correct?
Governor Reynolds. Look, I can tell you that in Iowa, the
taxpayers of Iowa hold me personally responsible and
accountable for state government, just as they hold President
Trump accountable for his----
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. But Lutheran Church is not a money
laundering operation, right?
Governor Reynolds. [continuing]. As the President of the
United States, and the election that----
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Ma'am, Des Moines, Iowa, is the home to
the largest Lutheran congregation of the United States.
Governor Reynolds. [continuing]. I think Americans
overwhelmingly, Iowans overwhelmingly----
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Is the Lutheran Church a money
laundering operation?
Governor Reynolds. Listen.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Of course not.
Governor Reynolds. First of all, every program should be
looked at, and that is what we are trying to do.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. OK. But Lutheran Family Services has
some connection to money laundering. Is that what you are
suggesting?
Governor Reynolds. I am not saying that, but I said every--
--
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Yes or no question. Is it a money
laundering operation?
Governor Reynolds. It is not a yes or no question. I cannot
speak to that.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. You cannot speak to that. Oh, my God.
Let us go to this USAID issue. The USAID purchases crops from
Iowa farmers. Recently, Elon Musk called it a criminal
organization. Purchasing crops from Iowa farmers is not a
criminal activity, correct?
Governor Reynolds. I am the Governor of Iowa. I do not have
anything----
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Yes or no. Is that a criminal activity?
Governor Reynolds. I am the Governor of Iowa, and I do not
work with USAID. It is not a position that I am familiar with.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Is purchasing crops from Iowa farmers a
criminal operation?
Governor Reynolds. In general, purchasing crops from Iowans
is not.
Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Biggs from
Arizona.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you. Governor Reynolds and Mr. Schatz,
thanks for being here. In 2021, Governor Reynolds, you led the
state of Iowa in challenging OSHA's unconstitutional private
sector COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the filed
lawsuit by Governor Reynolds and Governor Reynolds' November 5,
2021, press release be entered into the record.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you. In that suit, Iowa, Arizona--my
state--and nine other states argued that the Federal Government
lacks the constitutional authority under its enumerated powers
to issue this mandate, and its attempt to do so
unconstitutionally infringes on the state powers expressly
reserved by the Tenth Amendment. That is what the lawsuit said,
Governor, and I agree with that, and guess who else agreed with
it? The courts agreed with it. And it was the same vaccine
mandate that led me to introduce my legislation, which is
pending. It is called NOSHA, which would return to the states
the authority to regulate workplace health and safety. And I
notice that Iowa and Arizona, along with 20 other states,
currently operate under an OSHA state plan.
Governor Reynolds. Right.
Mr. Biggs. Is it correct that to approve a state plan, OSHA
certifies that the state's workplace health and safety plans
exceed Federal requirements?
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Mr. Biggs. And Iowa, like Arizona, has maintained an
approved state plan since 1985.
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Mr. Biggs. Do you believe that state officials and the
people of Iowa are better positioned to set workplace health
and safety standards than the Federal Government?
Governor Reynolds. I do.
Mr. Biggs. If the power to set these standards were
returned fully to the states, would you maintain Iowa's
existing high standards for workplace safety, or would you make
it your mission to put your constituents at risk of danger in
the workplace?
Governor Reynolds. I would keep it as the exemplar as it is
right now.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you. Now, let us go to a different topic,
kind of where you have been when my colleague would not let you
answer questions, but we will try to get there here. So, our
Nation is $36 trillion in debt with a structural deficit; that
is a structural deficit, not a cyclical deficit, of $2 trillion
each year, and it is rising. Just last year, for the first
time, payments on interest on our debt loan eclipsed our
defense budget. Meanwhile, we are losing hundreds of billions
of dollars annually to waste, fraud, abuse, improper payments,
et cetera.
Mr. Schatz, thanks for your testimony today. If you are
tasked with stopping taxpayers from being defrauded in transfer
payment programs, could that be accomplished without a thorough
review of how the Federal Government actually sends money out
the door?
Mr. Schatz. Absolutely not. In order to determine how the
money is being spent, somebody has to see what it looks like,
and that has been a big problem for a long time, is no one has
looked at it. They just make the payments, and they do not
prevent it from being wasted when it goes out of the door.
Mr. Biggs. Governor Reynolds, you know, you have done great
work in Iowa. I have watched it. Your model that you provided
for the country is fantastic. Did your reorganization include
reviews and improvements to state systems focused on stopping
waste, fraud, and abuse, as Mr. Schatz described?
Governor Reynolds. It absolutely did, and with the
realignment and the visibility, as I said earlier, that I now
have into each agency, it gives us even more opportunities to
continue to refine and make our systems better. There is money
in the system. We are just not using it efficiently and
effectively, and there is no accountability, there is no
transparency, and this has allowed us to bring that to the
forefront.
Mr. Biggs. Right. And so, I am going to ask you, Governor
Reynolds, and then you, Mr. Schatz, to respond to this. When
you get an opportunity to look at line-by-line budgeting, where
the expenses go, that allows you to make adjustments to what is
really critical on fraud, waste, duplicative programs, et
cetera?
Governor Reynolds. Yes, especially the duplicate and the
fraud. It allows us to review them line-by-line and make
decisions accordingly.
Mr. Biggs. Yes. Mr. Schatz?
Mr. Schatz. That is correct. In fact, the Federal
Government does not have anything online where taxpayers can
see exactly how every penny is being spent. Ohio has an Ohio
checkbook. You can look it up online. There were so many things
that are not done here the way they are done, not just in the
private sector, but among the states. And I know there has been
efforts to modernize technology with 80 percent of the IT being
legacy systems. Government is far behind in providing the
transparency taxpayers need. That is part of what they are
trying to do.
Mr. Biggs. Yes. So, I am actually baffled that instead of
cheering the Administration's efforts to conduct a thorough and
necessary review of the systems, they are receiving, you know,
these doomsday scenarios, these statements that they want to
stop it, and I do not know why you want to stop it. I mean, in
my home state of Arizona, we actually do the same thing. You
can go online and you can see a line-by-line. I asked for a
line-by-line, one single agency. I just wanted one agency; can
you give me a line-by-line budget to look at? They brought me
two books like this, and none of them were line-by-line. They
did not cover every program within that agency. They did not
describe everything that was there. This is what we have to
correct if we are going to get out of our structural deficit
hole. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, witnesses.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Khanna from California.
Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Schatz, you have said
that you believe that the Department of Education should not
exist, that you grew up without the Department of Education,
had a good education, and you believe it should go to the
states and local government. Is that an accurate representation
of your position?
Mr. Schatz. Yes.
Mr. Khanna. I just want to understand clearly where you
stand. So, that would mean that you oppose any Title I funding
that helps many public schools. It is about $18 billion. Two-
point-eight million American students are impacted. Yes or no.
Would you be for cutting that $18 billion?
Mr. Schatz. I did not say to eliminate the programs within
the Department of Education. I said the Department itself
should be eliminated. That money should be----
Mr. Khanna. So, where would you stand on the Title I
funding?
Mr. Schatz. Well, that money should be assessed to
determine whether it is being used effectively. Governor
Reynolds mentioned how many different ways that money could be
spent.
Mr. Khanna. But right now, would you want that money
paused, or do you think the money should be disbursed, the $18
billion?
Mr. Schatz. I think it is something that Congress needs to
determine in the administration----
Mr. Khanna. Yes. Congress, not the----
Mr. Schatz. Both. Look----
Mr. Khanna. No, but it is a simple question. Do you think
the $18 billion that Congress has appropriated and authorized
should be disbursed?
Mr. Schatz. At the moment, it should be disbursed because
that has been the law to disburse it.
Mr. Khanna. And you are for examining it and then possibly
cutting it?
Mr. Schatz. If there is a more effective way--look,
spending has gone up, test scores have gone like this, or down.
Mr. Khanna. Do you understand the difference between
correlation and causation?
Mr. Schatz. What has happened is that spending has gone
higher, education has not improved. That is the answer.
Mr. Khanna. Yes, but they are also the state budget
because--I do not want to get into the difference between
correlation and causation, but just a simple question on Title
I. So, you would be for examining it, but possibly cutting it,
and that is your testimony.
Mr. Schatz. That is possible. Everything in the Federal
Government needs to be reexamined.
Mr. Khanna. OK. Pell Grants: 7,395 of the neediest low-
income students annually get these grants. It has helped about
6.7 million students. Would you be for cutting Pell Grants?
Mr. Schatz. I think, again, it needs to be looked at and
examined to determine if it is effective.
Mr. Khanna. So, possibly cutting them?
Mr. Schatz. Anything is possible and----
Mr. Khanna. OK. What about----
Mr. Schatz [continuing]. That is a different category, that
is an entitlement, that is not discretionary.
Mr. Khanna. So, you do believe they should be disbursed
today?
Mr. Schatz. One of the problems with programs like Pell
Grants are that they are not examined as much as they should
be.
Mr. Khanna. Do you agree, though, that Elon Musk--I have
just been going back and forth with him on Twitter
-he said, ``Don't a dick.'' I said, ``Make sure you follow
the Constitution.'' But do you agree that he has no authority
to stop payments on anything that Congress has authorized and
appropriated?
Mr. Schatz. I think that is being tested, but I think,
generally, that should be correct.
Mr. Khanna. If he were asking you, would you advise him to
not stop payments that have been authorized and appropriated by
Congress?
Mr. Schatz. My statement said that Congress has
appropriated money or provided money, and there should be an
examination of the results of how that money is being spent.
That is what I think should be done.
Mr. Khanna. I missed the earlier procedural vote. I just
want to make clear. I think that Mr. Musk should come and
testify before this Committee to explain that he is not going
to stop payments, at all, for money that Congress has
authorized and appropriated. Now, the IDEA Program that is
about $14.2 billion--would you stop the funding or cut the
funding for the IDEA Program that helps kids with disabilities?
Mr. Schatz. Again, something that Congress needs to review
to determine if it is achieving its mission. That is the whole
point of everything that we have been talking about.
Mr. Khanna. Now, you realize that lot of local and state
governments complain because the IDEA Program was supposed to
be funded at 40 precent. Jared Huffman, my colleague, has a
bill to do that. We only fund it at 15 percent. The school
districts complain that they have an unfunded mandate, and you
are saying maybe we should cut even more than the 15 percent?
Mr. Schatz. I did not say cut. I said it should be examined
to determine if it is being effective and whether the money
should go back to the states entirely.
Mr. Khanna. Do you believe it is being effective?
Mr. Schatz. I think the Department of Education has proven
that it has not provided the results that Congress wants to
provide.
Mr. Khanna. I have got 1 minute. Do you believe in these
three things: Title I funding, Pell Grants, and IDEA--tell me
if you think they have been effective or have not been
effective. IDEA grants?
Mr. Schatz. I am honestly not familiar with that program as
much as some of the others.
Mr. Khanna. OK. I mean, that is----
Mr. Schatz. But that is also an answer that----
Mr. Khanna. Pell Grants?
Mr. Schatz. Pell Grants have provided support, but, again,
everything needs to be re-examined.
Mr. Khanna. Title I funding?
Mr. Schatz. Again, the same thing. We have got a $36
trillion debt, we have $2 trillion deficit, so that is all
combined in there.
Mr. Khanna. Well, the Department of Education is a very
small percent of the funding. It is the Defense Department
spending that is the big part. I appreciate you are at least
telling Musk that he should not stop these payments that have
been authorized by Congress. I hope Elon will come in and
explain that. He will not do that, but I am concerned that you
want to cut programs like the IDEA Act, possibly, that are
helping kids with disabilities across America.
Mr. Schatz. I did not say that, Congressman. What I did say
was--look, part of the problem is everybody says this is only a
small percentage of spending, and then you get a $36 trillion
debt.
Mr. Khanna. Yes, because the big items are defense and the
tax breaks for the wealthy.
Chairman Comer. OK. The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Higgins from Louisiana.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a lot to cover
and not a lot of time to do it in.
I would like to enter for the record, please, a letter from
the Associated Builders and Contractors of America regarding
merit-based hiring, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My brothers and
sisters on both sides of the aisle, we have a historical trend
in our Nation. We have an opportunity to address legitimately
from both liberal and conservative perspectives. I think it
should be embraced because, generally speaking, we started
losing our country about 40 years ago regarding the accelerated
accumulation of debt. And this coincides, of course, with the
massive growth of the Federal Government, and this coincides,
of course, with the ongoing increasing infringement upon
individual liberties, rights, and freedoms, and movement away
from the sovereignty of our states regarding their ability to
handle their business, reflective of the Tenth Amendment, might
I add, which reserves to the states all authorities not
specifically enumerated to the Federal Government or prohibited
to the states by Congress or the Constitution.
So, I mean, ladies and gentlemen, President Clinton--when
you have a unified government, when you have either party in
majority control in the House, the Senate, and the White House,
that is opportunity to really address the trajectory that won
in our country. President Clinton was not going to reduce the
size and scope of the Federal Government. President Bush was
not going to reduce the size and scope of the Federal
Government. President Obama was not going to do that. You have
a unique moment in history right now. We have an obligation to
address the trajectory that has been established over the last
four decades. This is a trajectory toward doom for our country.
It is unsustainable.
So, we have an executive branch that is pumping the brakes,
and this is something that this town is very uncomfortable
with, and, quite frankly, is new territory. It is a new
exercise for our country in modern history. So, there is going
to be maybe some wild steering, shall we say, when you are
applying the brakes for the first time in modern history, but I
encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to grasp
what is going on here. We are trying to save our republic from
itself.
Governor Reynolds, I would like to ask you about your role.
Your beautiful work reducing your own executive branch from 37
cabinet level departments to 16, is exactly the kind of thing
we are trying to do. You saved your state a lot of money. You
changed your trajectory of spending. You reestablished
financial stability and economic prosperity because of your
conservative approach, which is what we are trying to do.
President Trump and Mr. Musk as an ambassador of common sense
for President Trump, to look hard at the practices of our
executive branches and to reduce their size and scope.
Governor Reynolds, I have a formula, essentially, that
transitions Federal service back to the sovereign states. We
can save a lot of money doing this. What are your thoughts on
shifting Federal responsibilities away from the massive Federal
Government to the sovereign states--generally speaking,
agencies like EPA, FEMA, Bureau of Prisons? How would that work
in your state, ma'am?
Governor Reynolds. Well, we would welcome that. Again, and
especially with the alignment, I think we are positioned very
well to do that, so I appreciate what I see happening with
DOGE. As I indicated in my remarks, I am standing up Iowa DOGE
so we can continue to bring the private sector in to examine
the way that we are doing business. Government has to operate
more like a business. It had been 40 years--40 years--since we
even looked at the structure of government in Iowa. It was ripe
for reform. You know, they never eliminate a program. They
never do away with one. Once it is started, it stays. If it is
not working, they think more money is the answer to it, so we
keep it. If it does not work, there are really no metrics ever
tied to anything, but the ongoing thought is, if we put a
little bit more money into it, eventually it is going to work.
So, I believe that states are well suited to implement
block grants with accountability, with transparency, with
metrics, with KPIs, so that we can report back to the Federal
Government the results that we are seeing from the opportunity
to take those streamlined dollars and be innovative and be
effective, whether it is the Department of Education, FEMA. I
had three Presidential disaster declarations in 2 months this
last spring.
Mr. Biggs. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. My time has expired.
Governor, thank you for the work that you are doing. Mr.
Chairman, I yield.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Ms. Brown from Ohio.
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At this very moment, an
unelected, unaccountable billionaire is raiding our government,
and instead of raising the alarm, the Oversight Committee--let
me repeat that--the Oversight Committee is running cover as
their President strips the government for parts. Two weeks in,
here is where we are at:
President Trump attempted to freeze funding for vital
programs, tried to make it easier to fire tens and thousands of
Federal workers, pressured more to resign, and has attempted to
bust union contracts. Meanwhile, Elon Musk, who has been tasked
with running a fake governmental department, now has access to
the Federal Payment System, and apparently the personal
information of every American. And none of this is happening
with congressional approval, and apparently my colleagues, the
Republicans on this committee, also want it to happen without
any congressional oversight. This is no way to govern, but they
know that. Instead, they want to bully and intimidate Federal
workers into submission. They want to replace experienced
workers who are loyal to the country with lackeys loyal to one
man.
The truth is that the civil service is filled with loyal,
dependable, and knowledgeable folks. They are people who
sacrifice for our country and keep the government ticking for
the American people. They ensure Social Security payments
arrive on time, inspect our food and water to keep it safe,
care for our veterans, crack down on corporate fraud, and track
deadly outbreaks like the bird flu. Cutting these jobs does not
make government leaner. It makes America weaker and it makes
life harder for everyday people.
Look at what happens when the government is stripped down
to the bone. In Ohio, Social Security field offices are on the
verge of collapse. Recently, a field office in my district had
to close its doors due to severe staffing shortages. The Social
Security workforce has shrunk in the last 2 decades, but at the
same time, its workload has increased by 25 percent. We have
asked Social Security workers to do more with less, and they
have somehow managed because public servants are not the enemy.
They are the people keeping this country running, and this
assault on them is an assault on all of us.
So, Governor Reynolds, thank you for joining us today. I
want to ask you a series of ``yes'' or ``no'' questions. In
2023, did you sign a bill to gut the state auditor's ability to
hold you and the state government accountable? Yes or no.
Governor Reynolds. A bill was signed to restrict--to
address----
Ms. Brown. I take that as a yes.
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Ms. Brown. Iowa law has a provision to hold lawbreakers in
government accountable for sexual harassment, but your
administration has paid out millions of dollars in settlements
for harassment. This has cost the taxpayers in your state. Is
that rightsized government? Yes or no.
Governor Reynolds. Changes have been made to address that,
but previous, that was a previous----
Ms. Brown. Reclaiming my time. Mr. Chair, I seek to ask
unanimous consent to enter into the record this Iowa Public
Radio article entitled, ``Iowa Will Pay $4.15 Million in
Finance Authority Sex Harassment Settlements,'' into the
record.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Brown. Now, during my colleague's question line, you
stated that every program should be looked at. However, you
signed a school voucher bill that sends $100 million of
taxpayer dollars intended for public schools to private schools
without any independent oversight of how this money is spent.
Yes or no, is this protecting against waste, fraud, and abuse?
Governor Reynolds. They are held accountable.
Ms. Brown. I will take that as a no.
Governor Reynolds. They are held accountable.
Ms. Brown. Last question. Iowa has 10,000 Federal workers.
Which Federal jobs do you think are redundant? Is it the staff
providing care to veterans at the VA facilities in Des Moines
and Iowa City, the USDA experts supporting your state's
farmers, or the Social Security staff ensuring payments reach
seniors?
Let us be clear about what is happening here. This is not
about rightsizing the Federal Government. It is about gutting
it, and it is about weakening our government's ability to serve
the American people. You want shorter wait times for Social
Security, faster disaster responses, safer food and medicine.
Then why attack the very workers who make it happen? The House
Democrats are fighting to protect and modernize the Federal
workforce, hire and retain talent, and give Federal workers the
resources they need to serve the American people. That is what
we are doing, and with that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you, and I
yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Palmer from
Alabama.
Mr. Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the witnesses
for being here, and I want to get to a more constructive
dialog. First of all, in regard to DOGE, as I have pointed out
to some of my colleagues, this is not the first time that the
Federal Government has engaged in an effort like this. One time
in particular was during the Clinton Administration. It was
called the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, and
it was led by Al Gore. I ran a think tank at the time. I was
invited to come to Washington to meet with some of the folks
working on this, but after 7 years of this effort, they reduced
the civilian employee population by over 426,000. They closed
250 Federal offices. They reduced the Federal registry by
700,000 pages and about 16,000 pages of regulations. And I
understand, Governor Reynolds, that Iowa has launched a
reorganization effort. Is the objective there to make
government more efficient, more effective, and more responsive
to the people of Iowa?
Governor Reynolds. More efficient, more effective, more
responsive, more accountable. It has brought transparency to
the process. We are better at what we are doing. I would say
that, you know, the employees appreciate the environment that
we are working in today. They appreciate the culture of
innovation that we are creating in the state, and they love
being a part of it.
Mr. Palmer. Now, did you bring in any outside experts, as
the Clinton Administration did, in that effort for reinventing
government back in the 1990's?
Governor Reynolds. I brought in one consultant to help
really do the comparisons in other states so we could see where
we were an outliner, where did we align, what had we maybe
missed. So, we used the consultant from that perspective and
just to help us with some of the administration, but otherwise,
we did it all internally.
Mr. Palmer. I worked for a couple of international
engineering companies, and one of the companies I worked for
went through a process like this and they brought in outside
consultants because people on the outside can see things those
of us on the inside miss.
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Mr. Palmer. So, it is important that you bring in really
the best that you can. In that regard, I really think that we
are in another reinventing government phase and, in particular,
with education. There is a big debate right now going on about
the number of H-1B visas that we need to have because we are
having to import so many technically trained workers. I do not
know if Iowa is experiencing some of this, but you probably
have some folks who are educated overseas that are now working
in engineering technically trained jobs. Would that be correct?
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Mr. Palmer. I think the fact that we are having, Mr.
Chairman, to bring so many people in who are engineers and
scientists is an indictment of the current education system. We
are not able to produce the number of technically trained
people that we need to be competitive in our economy, but also
in regard to our national security because we are in an arms
race for artificial intelligence with China, and we are going
to have to have a technically trained workforce. So, one of the
things that I have suggested in this effort in regard to the
Department of Education is that we not completely dismantle it,
Governor Reynolds, but maybe reimagine it as the Department of
Workforce Development and block grant the money to the states
with a heavy emphasis on STEM. Would you like to respond to
that?
Governor Reynolds. I would be very much in favor of that.
In fact, we have put a proposal together that we will be
submitting to the Department of Education. It gives states the
flexibility. We already have a waiver process in place that we
could utilize until they could actually get some of that
realignment done, but like I said, hold us accountable. We will
meet those expectations, and we can do it at a lower cost.
Mr. Palmer. We are going through, I think, an historic
phase. There is an historic opportunity here, and I think about
disruptive innovation, and I was talking to some folks today
about this. And some of you may not be old enough to remember
this when Toyota introduced the Corolla into the automobile
market in the United States in the 1970's. It forced U.S.
automobile manufacturers not only to rethink what they were
producing, but they literally retooled to do that.
Governor Reynolds. Right.
Mr. Palmer. I think we are in that phase now where we are
rethinking how government is run, and a lot of the innovation
is coming from the state level, such as from Iowa, but I think
that we are going to have to go through this phase. And it is
disruptive, there is no question about it, but it is for our
own good, long term. And we need to be thinking 25, 30, 40
years down the road about how we do this because we are at a
point in competition with China that if we do not do this
right, we are going to be in a really bad place.
So, Mr. Schatz, you have been very involved in evaluating
the complexity and size of government. How would you respond to
that, that we are in this disruptive innovation phase?
Mr. Schatz. Well, I think it is essential. What has been
going on has not been working. That is why we have a $36
trillion debt, have not balanced the budget more than 5 times
in 50 years. So, the changes that need to be made need to be
made quickly, before it gets worse, so.
Mr. Palmer. And thoughtfully.
Mr. Schatz. Yes, and thoughtfully. By the way, all the
discussion about individual agencies, what about the impact on
taxpayers of this massive debt and the future of this country
when the deficit goes up $2 trillion a year every year for the
next 10 years, and the interest on the debt doubles and it is
already bigger than the defense budget and everything else
except Social Security? No organization can survive like that,
so each discussion really should be discussed with that overall
view.
Mr. Palmer. Well, I thank the witnesses for the questions.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes Ms. Stansbury from New Mexico.
Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member,
Governor, welcome. To our witnesses, thank you for being here
today. I have really appreciated your commentary. It has been
real, it has been substantive, and I support much of the
efficiency work that is being done at the states.
But I have to say, once again, welcome to the latest
episode of the GOP Oversight Committee where my colleagues at
the beginning of this hearing once again voted to block a good
government motion to carry out our most basic constitutional
duty. They voted against a motion this morning, just a few
moments ago, to bring Elon Musk in front of this Committee to
discuss what he is doing to supposedly rightsize the government
as they are claiming in this hearing. And I have to say to my
colleagues, with all due respect, why are you shielding Elon
Musk from coming in front of this Committee if that is what
your intent is with this hearing and the work that you want to
do? Why is the GOP and the White House shielding an unelected,
unvetted, unqualified private citizen and billionaire who is
literally dismantling our agencies while we sit here and is
literally breaking the law?
Maybe it is because while we are sitting here, he and his
team are working across town here in Washington, DC, entering
Federal agencies and Federal buildings, hacking their data
systems, firing Federal employees, intimidating them, trying to
force them to leave, shutting down vital programs, closing the
Department of Education, the CIA, the DOJ, and threatening our
domestic and international security, and downloading the
private and sensitive data of Americans at the Department of
Treasury. So, what the hell is going on? How can you sit here
and defend this? They are literally breaking the law, the
Constitution, appropriations law, Federal labor laws, and
dozens of statutory laws that Congress has passed. And
meanwhile, my friends across the aisle are sitting here today
saying that we are hyperventilating, that we are just clutching
our pearls. Are you serious? Are you that out of touch with the
American people?
I mean, I guess that is what happens when you elect
billionaires and put billionaires in charge of the Federal
Government. Just let them eat cake. Is that your message to the
American people, because last week, while you were at Trump's
private resort in Florida and partying it up after the
Inauguration, telling the media that funding freezes would not
hurt real Americans, well, millions of real Americans were sent
into total chaos, and our states had to go to the courts to
shut down your Federal funding freeze. While Trump was golfing,
the Medicaid systems were shut down and locked out. Hospitals
and clinics were wondering if they were going to be able to
keep their doors open. Food assistance and homeless programs
across New Mexico were shut out of their grant programs that
keep families literally fed and off the streets. Head Starts,
preschools, and children's programs were wondering if they were
going to be able to make payroll the next day or by the end of
the week.
And while Elon Musk and a group of teenage software
engineers were hacking your personal data at the Treasury
Department, shutting down DOJ, the CIA, USAID, and ending
diversity initiatives in the military, saying that the United
States military could not honor Dr. Martin Luther King, our
proud military personnel and veterans who put their lives on
the line every day for this country were wondering if they were
going to get their paychecks and veterans' benefits.
So, colleagues, we are not clutching our pearls or
hyperventilating. We are defending the millions of Americans
who are under attack, the Federal employees, the mothers, the
fathers, the grandfathers being put out on leave, advocating
for the people of color, the women, the members of our LGBTQ+,
and, yes, our trans community, who are under fire right now
under the guise of canceling DEI programs, under the guise of
so-called undoing social engineering after years of progress in
this country. We are defending the proud Federal servicemembers
who defend our national security, who serve our communities,
and keep our economy running, because I want to tell you
something. The American people are terrified, and if you are
that out of touch with your people, then you should talk to
your constituents. We had a town hall 2 days ago, and 12,000
New Mexicans got on our call because the people are terrified
in this country, and that is why we are fighting back. That is
why we are trying to bring Elon Musk to this Committee, and
that is why we are fighting against this agenda. And with that,
I yield back.
Mr. Palmer. [Presiding.] The gentlelady yields. The Chair
recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Cloud, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cloud. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you, witnesses,
for being here, and I apologize that you have to sit here and
listen to the same sort of ideological rants that lost our
friends across the aisle the election in a public survey just a
couple of months ago where the hearts and minds of the American
people spoke very loud and clearly for what they wanted.
One of the things that has been puzzling about this whole
conversation is the obsession on Elon Musk. When President
Trump campaigned, he was very clear in what he wanted to do,
and the talking is like this DOGE idea was some secret thing
that just popped up on the radar in the last week when the
actuality is it is something that President Trump said he was
going to do. He said Elon Musk would be involved with it, and
the American people spoke loud and clearly that this is what
they want. And so, the only thing that is really surprising
about what we have seen over the last 2 weeks is the fact that
we have a President doing exactly what he said he would do.
And, you know, for us, the need to bring in and to rein in
our Federal agencies could not be clearer than it has been. We
have always known and have known quite for some time that the
Federal bureaucracy has a tendency to grow. Ronald Reagan once
said the closest thing to eternal life we have on earth is a
Federal agency, and we have seen time and time again throughout
our oversight capacities the attitude among much of our Federal
agencies that they are here permanently and we as elected
officials are here temporarily, and that they will do whatever
they feel. And if they do not like the policies handed down by
the elected executive, that they will ignore it, obfuscate, do
everything they can even to shield data from us.
And so, it has been refreshing that many of the suspicions
we have seen have become quite transparent as we brought
transparency tools to the table over the last several weeks.
But, you know, there is this idea in Washington that any time
we have an agency who is underperforming, they will come before
us, and the thing that they will always ask for is more money,
more power to fix the problem oftentimes that they created.
This is a paradigm that we have to change. It has been said
that you cannot solve problems with the same kind of thinking
you used when you created them, and so this is really what DOGE
is about.
And to name a couple points, we can point to the CDC, which
has tremendous mission creep since it was started. It was
originally purposed to help control malaria, kind of to be a
center for data and a hub of information to help people tackle
those sort of things. It ended up expanding to the Communicable
Disease Center and eventually became the Center for Disease
Control, and now the Center for Disease Control and Prevention,
which it has not done a good job at, as we have seen over the
last few years through COVID. And now it is trying to embrace
such things as climate change and alleged gun violence and
systemic racism as Centers for Disease Control. Meanwhile,
their basic core function of being able to collect and share
data to help the American people, they epically failed at
during COVID when a first-year Ph.D. student from John Hopkins
created a better tool than the CDC could provide.
We could also look at the Department of Education, which
has gotten a lot of discussion lately and interest in looking
at what is going on because our schools are failing our kids.
That is just the status quo of where we are at in America. And
what we can see here is education funding from the Federal
Government has gone up, student performance has been flat, and
compared to other nations has actually gone down. Meanwhile,
employment of the education workforce has gone up, so we end up
having less people actually teaching in the classroom and more
people administrating it, and so we have created an education
bureaucracy.
Now, Mr. Schatz, did I pronounce that right?
[Non-verbal response.]
Mr. Cloud. You talked about the importance of understanding
and looking at the intended results, are they happening, and
that is one of the things that I think we are addressing in
DOGE. Could you speak to the importance of making sure that we
are addressing the intended results as opposed to just sending
money at it, the example of the difference between helping
students, perhaps, and helping school systems?
Mr. Schatz. Well, the test scores and the higher costs are
exactly what I was discussing earlier. If you are spending more
on something, you are supposed to get results that match what
you are spending the money on, otherwise you should not be
spending it, whether it is in the Government or in the private
sector. And again, as Congressman Khanna pointed out, I did
grow up without a Department of Education, as did my whole
generation. It was a little Office of Health, Education, and
Welfare. States spent the money. We think they could do a great
job. They are competitive with each other, and some programs
obviously should be retained and some should be turned back
down to where they can do a much better job and be closer to
the people.
Mr. Cloud. Governor Reynolds, I am curious because you have
done a good job of streamlining the government, and I am
curious about your ideas on how you hold government employees
accountable, how you hold agencies accountable. What are the
tools necessary to do so? One of the big challenges here is
getting the information necessary in order to do that. You can
think about the grants that are going out. We have seen USAID.
I mean, the stuff that they were spending money on is crazy. We
are finding out that our Federal Government is actually a money
laundering scheme to help support leftist ideologies across the
world and here at home. It is crazy, but yet, finding that
accountability piece, we are able to hold the individuals who
are sending these checks out, for example. How do you bring
that kind of accountability?
Governor Reynolds. Well, we have our state expenditures
online, too, so our checkbook is online so taxpayers in Iowa
can check and see what is going out from the state. But in
addition to that, you remember I talked about, we reviewed 800
programs across my cabinet, and not a one of them had a KPI,
any type of a metric, any type of expectation for outcomes,
zero.
So, my cabinet knows now that if they want to stand up a
new program or they want to extend an existing program, then it
needs to have, first of all, a KPI. They need to have data that
they are going to be reviewing. They need to review what the
program had done, what were the metrics, what were the outcomes
from the existing program to justify putting additional money
into it. They had never put all the programs together, they
themselves had not even taken a look at it, so that is how it
just continues to grow and bloat and just be unmanageable. So,
I had them rank the programs that they have. Now, to their
defense, sometimes the legislature hangs a program on them. But
we are working with the legislature, too, to just say, you
know, this is not something that we believe can really move the
needle and go in the direction that we believe the state can
head, but it is a conversation with our legislators.
So, it is holding them accountable, making them report back
to the chief executive on what they currently are doing and
what they are doing going forward, but just simply putting key
performance indicators as part of a program and then monitoring
the outcome and basing decisions on data, which is never
happening. And it takes the emotion out of the equation, and
that is what we need to do. We need to look at programs, we
need to look at the outcomes, and if they are not working, then
we have to let them go and figure out an innovative and better
way that we can get the results that we believe that we can
accomplish.
Chairman Comer. [Presiding.] Very good. The gentleman's
time has expired. The Chair recognizes Mr. Garcia from
California.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I wanted to start
by thanking our witnesses for being here. Thank you for hosting
this hearing as well, and I wanted to start by just starting
with Dr. Resh. It is a very simple question.
[Poster]
Mr. Garcia. You can see here an article from the Washington
Post. Can you just quickly, if we can take one step back, just
mention how much did Elon Musk donate to Republicans in the
2024 election?
Dr. Resh. To Republicans in?
Mr. Garcia. To Republicans in the last election.
Dr. Resh. To Republicans overall, I do not know, well over
$250 million to the Trump Campaign.
Mr. Garcia. Right, almost $300 million, and, in fact, Mr.
Musk was the single largest donor in the last cycle. I am not
sure if you knew that or not, in this last election, and here
is actually the article and the headline from the Washington
Post: ``Elon Musk Puts $277 Million Into the Election. He is
$200 Billion Richer This Year''--$200 billion richer this year.
Now, we also know that just in the month, in the month after
the election, Elon Musk's wealth increased by $170 billion. It
should also not be a surprise to anyone that Elon Musk himself
holds $20 billion in contracts with the Federal Government.
Now, the truth is, is that DOGE is not really about
efficiency or reform. What Donald Trump and Elon Musk are
actually engineering is the single largest wealth transfer in
history. And to pay for the enormous tax cut that is about to
come to this Congress in the months ahead, they need to slash
spending by trillions of dollars. In fact, Elon Musk himself
has said that he wants to slash $2 trillion, $1 trillion from
the actual budget. Now, in Trump's first term, we know that he
already had a huge tax cut for the richest Americans and
corporations. Now he wants to slash it by one-third more, but
here is the truth. In order to actually get more funds for
their tax cut program, they need to slash trillions, and where
are they going to do that? Well, they have started: the
Department of Education, the Department of Labor, veterans'
benefits, USAID, and eventually Social Security, Medicare, and
Medicaid.
Right now, as we know, Elon Musk, the richest man on the
planet, is trying to destroy USAID with his DOGE team. Now,
this is the agency, we know, that distributes foreign aid, but
that is just step one of their plan. Now, of course, we know
they are going after the Department of Education. And here is
an article from the Washington Post as well: ``Trump Preps
Order to Dismantle the Department of Education as DOGE Probes
data.'' Now, let me just begin by saying that their mission is
to destroy Federal agencies like the Department of Ed to then
save money and then transfer that wealth to Elon Musk, his
companies, and their billionaire friends through a massive tax
cut. Eliminating the Department of Ed would be catastrophic for
children all over this country. I am a longtime educator. I
spent 10 years in the classroom teaching and as an
administrator.
The funding provided by the Department of Ed is critical to
children with disabilities, student loans for colleges, and
ensuring that students are protected across this country. The
Department of Ed has $160 billion to help kids pay for college,
$18 billion for low-income kids at K-12 schools, $15 billion
for kids with disabilities. And in most cases, most schools are
reliant on the Department of Ed to ensure that students with
disabilities or that have additional needs get the education
that they deserve. And now all of that is on the line because
billionaires and corporations in this country need and want a
larger tax cut. So, let us be crystal clear about what Elon
Musk is actually doing right now. It is a wealth transfer to
himself and his billionaire friends.
I also just want to note that just recently and yesterday,
in fact, the New York Times reported that now they are
accessing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This
can be catastrophic to people across this country. And so, this
Committee, rightly so, has asked and demanded that Elon Musk
testify under oath in front of this Committee. We know that the
law is on this side. We know that what he is doing is
unconstitutional, and we demand that he come here and provide
answers not just to us, but to the American public. And with
that, I yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Crane from Arizona.
Mr. Crane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, would it
be possible to get some therapy dogs in here for my colleagues
on the other side of the aisle?
Chairman Comer. We could ask Mr. Raskin's shrink to----
Mr. Crane. I am worried about their mental stability. You
know, I think it is funny, Mr. Chairman, when I hear my
colleagues on the other side of the aisle whining and
complaining Elon Musk.
Mr. Garcia. I mean, those are insults, to be clear.
Mr. Crane. Excuse me. It is my time. Thanks. Elon Musk and,
you know, how much money he donated to President Trump. Yet I
do not recall the same outrage when, you know, billionaires on
their side of the aisle, like Mark Zuckerberg, George Soros,
you know, or any of the other ones, they were donating massive
sums of money to their side of the aisle.
Mr. Resh, I want to start with you, real quick. I read
something you stated in your testimony. You said, ``Rather than
a bloated bureaucracy, we face a workforce stretched too thin,
forced to oversee an increasingly complex web of outsourced
operation with limited personnel and resources.'' Is that
correct? Did you say that in your testimony, sir?
Dr. Resh. Yes, sir.
Mr. Crane. I would like to read you a list of priorities
over at USAID right now. One of the agencies that Elon Musk,
who has triggered my colleagues on the left so much, the Agency
for International Development, which had a budget of over $40
billion in Fiscal Year 2023. This is not an exhaustive list, it
is a very small list--but $1.5 million to advance diversity,
equity, and inclusion in Serbia's workplaces and business
communities; $2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam; $2
million for sex changes and LGBT activism in Guatemala; $6
million to fund tourism in Egypt; hundreds of thousands of
dollars for a nonprofit linked to designated terror
organizations even after an inspector general launched an
investigation. Do you still stand by your comments, sir?
Dr. Resh. Yes, my comments were in regards to the ability
of administrators to adequately oversee the funds that Congress
has appropriated to them for these programs.
Mr. Crane. Yes. So, you do not think this is a bloated
workforce when we are spending money overseas like that? Sir,
are you aware that we are over $36 trillion in debt, Mr. Resh?
Dr. Resh. Yes, I certainly am.
Mr. Crane. OK. So, you still stand by your comments that
this is not a bloated Federal workforce?
Dr. Resh. The Federal workforce represents 4 percent of the
entire budget for every----
Mr. Crane. Sir, do you know what the annual deficit is
every year?
Dr. Resh. Please?
Mr. Crane. It is over $2 trillion.
Dr. Resh. I understand that.
Mr. Crane. OK. So, you still stand by your comments that it
is not a bloated workforce?
Dr. Resh. Two trillion dollars is not reflective of the
workforce that is the Federal employee.
Mr. Crane. Oh, it is not? We are not spending money on the
workforce? OK, copy.
Dr. Resh. Of your entire budget, 4 percent. If you cut the
entire workforce, 4 percent would be reflected.
Mr. Crane. Do you know why often we use private companies
and contractors in the Federal Government, sir? Because you can
actually fire them. It is a lot easier to fire them if they are
not performing. Sir, have you ever ran a large organization or
a small business?
Dr. Resh. No, I have not.
Mr. Crane. I just find it interesting that we bring in a
Governor of one of the united states who has actually run a
state to talk about all the cuts, the elimination of fraud,
waste, and abuse, and how she has got her state high performing
and made a bunch of changes so that they actually have a
surplus. And my Democrat colleagues bring in a professor who
has never run a large organization, never run a small business,
and, therefore, has really no idea what it is like to deal with
the consequences of out-of-control spending and inefficiencies.
Does that strike anybody else in the room as odd? What
about you, Mr. Schatz? Who are you going to take advice from on
efficiency, somebody who has actually run a large organization
or business or maybe a state? And I am not trying to throw
shade at Dr. Resh and his profession. There have been a lot of
professors in my life that have brought me a lot of value. But
when we are talking about trying to add efficiencies to the
largest government in the history of the world that is
operating at $36 trillion national debt, $2 trillion annual
deficit, Mr. Schatz, who are you going to take counsel and
advice from?
Mr. Schatz. Well, I think anyone who has an idea about how
to cut spending should be welcome, and that could include
academics. It can include nonprofit groups, Governors. So, the
point is to get the job done, not to keep talking about it.
Mr. Crane. That is right, and the last thing I will say is,
because my Democrat colleagues are losing their mind with Elon
Musk, do not forget that Elon Musk campaigned with the
President. The American people were very excited about Elon
Musk using all of the tools and experience that he has and that
he has used in the private sector to come in and streamline
this Federal Government. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. Thank you. The Chair recognizes Mr. Frost
from Florida.
Mr. Frost. Thank you. Governor Reynolds, thank you so much
for being here today. I have been to Iowa. I have spent a lot
of time in Iowa. It is a beautiful state, so thank you for
being here.
Medicaid covers almost 700,000 Iowans, over a third of
Iowa's children. In 2013, I believe, Iowa expanded Medicaid. I
have a few questions for you. If Medicaid funding were to
disappear, what would that mean for the people of Iowa?
Governor Reynolds. I do not think it will disappear. Simply
looking at a system and seeing if we can enhance it and make it
better does not----
Mr. Frost. That is not my question, though, Governor. My
question is, if it were to disappear, what would that mean for
your----
Governor Reynolds. Well, I do not think that is the intent
of anybody, but we need to do it better, and we need to help it
to be successful.
Mr. Frost. If it were to disappear, Governor, what would
that mean for the people?
Governor Reynolds. Well, I cannot speculate on that because
I do not believe that that would happen.
Mr. Frost. So, you as the Governor of your state cannot say
what it would mean to lose Medicaid for your people?
Governor Reynolds. I----
Mr. Frost. OK. We will move on. How would people across
Iowa react to rural and community health centers having to
suddenly close?
Governor Reynolds. Well, as I talked about in my opening
remarks, we are actually working on maternal health and working
on healthcare in rural Iowa, and that means, again, looking at
regions. I took, you know, 32 fragmented substance abuse and
mental health regions and unified them into seven behavioral
health regions, and we are putting----
Mr. Frost. That is great to hear, Governor, yes.
Governor Reynolds. [continuing]. In place a hub-and-spoke
model which they will be a part of. But again, it is
duplication that you want to lose.
Mr. Frost. That is great to hear, Governor. I am sure you
are doing great work. I want to focus on the questions that I
have. I have limited time. I am sorry, Governor.
Governor Reynolds. OK.
Mr. Frost. I am sure you are doing great work on this. My
question is about rural and community health centers.
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Mr. Frost. Community health centers receive a huge amount
of Federal funding, including programs that help Iowans afford
medication, prescription drugs. What would that mean for the
people?
Governor Reynolds. And they are a part of our solution, and
we are taking that into account, but we do not want duplication
of services so that we can get those dollars on the ground.
Mr. Frost. That is good to hear. Community health centers
are part of the solution. That is good to hear. I am going to
move on, Governor, I am going to move on. That is good to hear.
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Mr. Frost. Some Republicans on this Committee are calling
Trump's careless assault on essential Federal services,
including his freezing of Medicaid payment system, rightsizing.
What is the right size for healthcare?
Governor Reynolds. Well, that is going to vary from state
to state, so, you know, I mean, my----
Mr. Frost. Would you be OK with Elon Musk or Trump
rightsizing Medicaid in Iowa?
Governor Reynolds. I do not think we should be afraid of
having the private sector step in and take a look at how we are
providing these services. We can learn from them.
Mr. Frost. Not just taking a look, Governor.
Governor Reynolds. It is bold.
Mr. Frost. Decisions are being made.
Governor Reynolds. Well, they are looking at the system and
making recommendations, and we should not be----
Mr. Frost. So, freezing the Medicaid payment system?
Governor Reynolds. We should not be afraid of that, so I
think that----
Mr. Frost. No, Governor, no one is afraid. Governor, sorry,
I am going to reclaim my time.
Governor Reynolds. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Frost. No one is afraid of, you know, taking a look at
what is going on, but what we are afraid of is our services,
the things that people depend on, being ripped away from us. I
am worried about Iowans losing the Medicaid that they voted to
expand. Seven hundred thousand Iowans are on Medicaid.
Governor Reynolds. But that is why we made the changes that
we made. That is why we realigned. We eliminated the
duplication, and by doing that, it put more money into the
program to actually meet the needs of our constituents.
Mr. Frost. Well, let us talk about what you did because we
were just talking about what you did. You came to office. You
made some changes to help with efficiency. I respect that, but
there is something that was brought up, even by the Chair, that
I want to bring up that shows the difference between what you
did and what is happening right now at the Federal Government.
You worked with the legislature and passed legislation in your
state legislature to make the broadest changes you wanted to
make. And that is not what is going on right now when we talk
about DOGE and everything else. You even mentioned at the
beginning of this hearing, you were so proud to say that you
did this all without massive layoffs, without forcing a large
percentage of your workforce to leave because you saw them as
valuable. I respect that, Governor. I respect you for that.
That is not what is going on here at the Federal level, but let
us move on to FEMA really quickly.
Trump has said that he wants FEMA to go away. He would like
to see the states take care of the disasters on their own. I
come from Florida. We work very closely with FEMA. Do you think
most Iowans would agree with President Trump that FEMA should
suddenly stop existing?
Governor Reynolds. I do not think he is eliminating, and I
think that what I had understood was he was thinking that maybe
it should go back to the states, which that is something I
think you should take a look at.
Mr. Frost. No, Governor. Sorry, Governor, I will reclaim.
The President was very clear on this. He believes that the
agency, FEMA, should be completely eliminated. Do you agree
with that, or do you not agree with that? I mean, it is OK to
disagree sometimes, you know.
Governor Reynolds. Well, I am not afraid to disagree. I am
just thinking, you know, there is----
Mr. Frost. So, do you disagree with FEMA, with the
assessment of FEMA?
Governor Reynolds. It is bureaucratic. It is a nightmare to
work with. They can only do one thing at a time. I have
impacted individuals, there are huge issues, and we can have a
whole another hearing on that.
Mr. Frost. There are issues with FEMA, maybe, but do you
agree with him that we should eliminate it? Governor, sorry, I
am going to reclaim my time. Do you agree with him that we
should eliminate FEMA? Yes or no.
Governor Reynolds. I think we need to take a look. We can
maybe take a look at it and how those services are delivered.
Mr. Frost. Take a look at it, but you do not think we
should eliminate it.
Governor Reynolds. I think we should take a look at it and
see how those services are delivered.
Mr. Frost. OK. But it sounds like you do not think--we
should not get rid of it, which I agree with. In the past 10
years, your state has been granted FEMA support 10 times.
President Trump in 2018 denied you a claim after flooding and
horrible weather patterns that happened in Iowa. You said you
were extremely disappointed and that the people of Iowa needed
FEMA's help. That was your quote and, so, thank you. I am glad
you are here to talk about the things you did in Iowa. I hope
President Trump can look at the way you did things and working
with your legislature the way it is supposed to work to make
the changes instead of letting a wealthy billionaire donor go
in and make the changes himself. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Chairwoman Greene from
the state of Georgia.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My Democrat colleagues
are reacting with manufactured outrage over Elon Musk and the
DOGE team going in and cleaning up the Federal Government. They
are saying the American people did not vote for this, but I
would like to correct that record. On July 13, when President
Trump was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, Elon Musk got behind
President Trump and he endorsed him. And then, on August 19 of
2024--this is before the election--Elon Musk posted on his own
account, ``I am willing to serve,'' and that right there says
``DOGE.'' This was not something that was created after the
election. It is no surprise to the American people.
As a matter of fact, the Department of Government
Efficiency was a key part of President Trump's campaign, and
President Trump campaigned over and over again on DOGE and Elon
Musk helping him. As a matter of fact, here, right here, on
Rolling Stone, which is very far left, by the way, Trump says
he would give Elon Musk a top role in his Administration.
Again, this was on August 20, 2024, well before the election.
This was no surprise to the American people.
The American people love DOGE so much. They love the
concept of saving the Federal Government, saving Americans, and
putting America First, cutting the waste and the spending,
cutting down the size of the Federal Government. They love it
so much they voted for President Trump and elected him with an
overwhelming victory. He won the popular vote, 312 Electoral
College votes. It is the Democrats that are the ones that are
still lost on their message, and their message is a failure,
and the American people spoke out about it.
As the national debt approaches $36.5 trillion, our
children and our grandchildren's futures are being sacrificed
at the altar of wasteful government spending and corruption.
With my new Subcommittee on DOGE, this Congress, we are going
to dig deep on the wasteful spending and corrupt bureaucracies
that have plagued our Nation for far too long. We will make
recommendations to address these problems, and we will make
sure the American people know exactly what is being done with
their hard-earned tax dollars. After all, this is what they
voted for.
Governor Reynolds, in Iowa, the state legislature passed a
bill in 2023 that lowered the number of cabinet-level
departments from 37 down to just 16. So, I would like to ask
you, did this make the Iowa Government more efficient, or less
efficient?
Governor Reynolds. More efficient.
Ms. Greene. I am not surprised. Is the Iowa government
still able to provide all the services your constituents
require of you?
Governor Reynolds. We are actually doing a better job of it
and putting more money into the programs or returning it back
to the taxpayers.
Ms. Greene. Amazing. It sounds like DOGE has already worked
in Iowa. Has your state lost money or saved money since
reorganizing its government?
Governor Reynolds. Two-hundred-and-seventeen million
dollars, surpassing our 4-year projection in the first 18
months, and that is conservative. We are going to continue to
see savings, and that is how I am going to continue to reduce
the tax burden on our taxpayers.
Ms. Greene. That is incredible. That is what all of America
wants. So, how do you think the Federal Government can
translate what Iowa has done to the national level you have
already achieved in your state? How can we replicate that?
Governor Reynolds. You are doing it. By bringing the
private sector in, having them take a look at the
inefficiencies in government, look at the systems, look at the
duplication, look at the unaccountability. There is no
transparency, there are no metrics, there is no data that they
can point to. We are standing up Iowa DOGE. We want to be a
partner in that because I think it is really important that the
Federal Government and the state government and the local
governments work together to really implement transformational
change. This is an incredible opportunity.
I have so much respect for President Trump to put this
initiative forward. He received an undeniable mandate in this
last election, as did we. We now have super majorities in both
the House and the Senate, the Governor's office, and an entire
Republican delegation that we have sent out to Washington D.C.
We did just what President Trump does. We told Iowans what we
were going to do, and we followed through with it, and that is
what Americans expect, and that is why 77 million people said
that President Trump is who we want to restore America's
greatness.
Ms. Greene. I absolutely agree with you, Governor Reynolds,
thank you. Mr. Schatz, in all your years at your organization,
can you give some of the most egregious examples of government
spending you have seen? And I know that it is hard to come up
with a few because there are a lot.
Mr. Schatz. I talked earlier about broadband programs. It
is not necessarily a wasteful expenditure, meaning something is
not trying to be. There are 133 broadband programs in 15
agencies. There are people that are still not connected, I am
sure also in Iowa; $42 billion for the BEAD program, not a
penny has been spent. We want people to be connected to the
internet. It is critical for our future, but unless those
programs are consolidated and someone figures out which ones
are working best, we are not going to achieve that objective.
It seems simple, but again, the problem here has been, as it
usually is, something is not working, spend more money, create
another program, do not take the time to look at how it is
working. And that is what DOGE and your subcommittee is going
to do, and we are happy to help any way we can, by the way.
Ms. Greene. Thank you, Mr. Schatz. And you are right, under
the Biden Administration, they actually canceled contracts with
Starlink, which are far less expensive, and then never built
out the infrastructure for broadband, true failure for the
American people, giant waste of money. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair
recognizes Ms. Lee from Pennsylvania.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am afraid that we are
witnessing the biggest con in real time. Our Federal Government
is being fleeced by a handful of billionaires at the expense of
everyday people. They are what we call unelected billionaire
oligarchs, and they are not trying to rightsize the government.
They are not trying to make things more efficient or improve
services. They want to eliminate their competition and grow
their private coffers. The collective net worth of the
President's Cabinet is over $460 billion. That is unprecedented
in our country's history, even counting the days of the robber
barons or when the only folks who could serve in government
were land-owning wealthy White men. This is not just government
by the top 1 percent. It is government by the top .0001
percent.
And these are not just disinterested outsiders who are
benevolent volunteers coming in to help us situate our
government, right? These are people who have conflict of
interests. They have financial stakes. They are even tied to
litigation against the very agencies that they have been tasked
to lead. Musk alone has nearly 100 government contracts across
17 Federal agencies that total $3 billion. By all accounts,
Musk is now running rampant through our Federal agencies,
accountable to no one, and doing what he pleases with Federal
systems and data with no transparency and no oversight. It is
still unclear if he has security clearance or if he has passed
a background check. He certainly has not filed any financial
disclosures.
This is absolutely outrageous, and Americans are rightfully
mad. This is the Committee on Oversight, one of the most
important committees, particularly in this era. Yet,
Republicans did not bring Elon Musk, the private citizen given
access to all other private citizens' data, and the one leading
all of this chaos, and just this morning, they blocked our
efforts to bring him in. Musk has a bunch of 20-something-year-
old child cronies accessing highly sensitive information and
technology at the Office of Personnel Management, the General
Services Administration, and the Department of Treasury. They
also have not been invited to testify before us today. So, I
think we need to ask ourselves, why does an unelected
billionaire need access to Americans' Social Security numbers
and the $6 trillion payment system, and if this operation is so
legit, why is there no transparency? Why are we pretending this
is about rightsizing? The only logical answer is greed and
corruption.
Dr. Resh, do you agree that there is a corruption risk with
this level of unaccountable access, and that Musk could use
this data to gain an advantage over his competitors?
Dr. Resh. Whenever there is no security clearance, there is
a corruption risk. Whenever there is entanglements in terms of
being a contractor or a contracted entity and a regulated
entity but with access to data or unfettered access to
protected government data, there is a risk of corruption.
Ms. Lee. Thank you so much. Beyond Musk and the rest of the
Cabinet appointees, just look at the powerful tech CEOs who had
front row seats to Trump's inauguration and also have financial
stakes with the very agencies that Trump is now looking to
fundamentally overhaul. Nearly every executive action taken so
far has been designed to make corruption easier. In the first
week alone, Trump fired 17 Inspectors General across 18
agencies. These are nonpartisan watchdogs, and this includes
the one from the Treasury Department, who could have served as
guardrail against Musk's efforts. The hiring freeze, stopping
Federal spending and trying to strong-arm Federal workers to
leave their jobs are all actions designed to make our
government fail and move things over to the private sector,
further fattening the bank accounts of these billionaires,
these unelected billionaires.
They will consistently tell you that private is better, but
meanwhile, the poverty gap keeps growing, and they keep laying
off people. While Americans' wages remain low, their
multimillion-dollar bonuses keep getting bigger. Republicans
are pushing these cost cuts so they can pay for their tax cuts.
Working-class Americans will not be benefiting from those tax
cuts, but Musk, these tech billionaires, and Trump's wealthy
cabinet officials, they certainly will. Meanwhile, working-
class Americans will be paying the price in jobs and lack of
regulations and in the loss of government services like
Medicare and Social Security, instead of the Federal Government
designed to serve all the people. Trump is doing everything he
can to turn the government into a tool to serve just one group:
the rich oligarchs he calls his friends. Thank you for your
time. I thank you. Thanks to the panel, and I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Timmons from South Carolina.
Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank
the witnesses for being here today. I do my best to work across
the aisle whenever possible, and I think that that is how this
place is supposed to work. I try to earn the respect and the
trust of all of my colleagues. I am sickened by the way that
the left is categorizing and lying about what Elon Musk is
doing in the Federal Government. I am going to say what is
true, and then I am going to debunk their ridiculous lies.
No. 1, President Trump hired Elon Musk. He is a Federal
employee. He does not make enough to trigger financial
disclosures. Those are the rules. If you do not like them, file
a bill to change them. He has hired people to seek out waste,
fraud, and abuse throughout all government agencies. He leads a
team within the Administration that has smaller teams across
all of government. Their job is to bring sanity to this
process. They do not have to be Senate confirmed because they
do not make enough money and they are not in positions of
control. They are in advisory positions. Their objective is to
give a menu of options to the President, to the Secretary of
Treasury, to Secretary of Defense, to all the different agency
heads, who are Senate confirmed, of ways to conserve taxpayer
dollars. That is what this election was about.
We got $36 trillion in debt. We run a $2 trillion annual
deficit. This is unsustainable, and the American people have
spoken. So, what are he and his teams doing? They are creating
systems to track sources and uses. We have not done that. When
a government agency goes to the Treasury and says, we want this
money, there is no system through which they actually can say,
all right, Congress, appropriate it, authorize it, and what do
you use it for, and then track all that. So, what are they
doing? They are creating systems to make sure that the money is
going where it is supposed to go, and guess what? The Democrats
are losing their mind. He is also creating systems to ensure
accountability. All of this is going to be public. All of this
is going to be public, and he has proven that he can turn
around businesses that are failing, and he has offered his time
to try to save this country.
So, I guess, first, just ridiculous lies that are being
told. Elon Musk does not have access to Americans' personally
identifiable information at Treasury. He just does not. You
have career bureaucrats that are mad that they are losing their
jobs because they are no longer useful in the future of this
government because they have gotten us in a situation. I had
dinner with Treasury Secretary Bessent, and he assured us that
all that the DOGE employees at Treasury were doing was checking
sources and uses to make sure that money authorized and
appropriated by Congress is being spent on what it is supposed
to be spent on. The fact that we have not done that yet and it
is 2025 is insane. So, while people call my office and say,
Elon Musk has my records, that is a lie. It is a lie from the
flailing bureaucracy that is no longer useful because
technology can solve all these problems.
Ms. Stansbury. Will the gentleman yield for a clarifying
question?
Mr. Timmons. Sure, go ahead.
Ms. Stansbury. Can you help us understand, based on what
you are explaining here then, why nearly 2 million Federal
workers received an email from OPM with Elon Musk's letterhead,
``a fork in a road,'' you know?
Mr. Timmons. OK. I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry. I am
debunking the fact that people are calling my office saying
that he has access to----
Ms. Stansbury. But you just said that----
Mr. Timmons. Hold on, that he has access to their tax
records, which he does not. The Treasury Secretary said that
you do not know better than the Treasury Secretary, and angry
bureaucrats do not know better than the Treasury Secretary.
That is our system of government. We won the election.
Ms. Stansbury. Elon Musk is being----
Mr. Timmons. The politically appointed and Senate confirmed
Treasury Secretary says you are wrong, so until you get actual
data----
Ms. Stansbury. Elon Musk is bragging about it on his
Twitter, you all. Go on his Twitter. Literally, go on Elon
Musk's Twitter, you guys.
Mr. Timmons. All right. So, I have an article here in
Politico. I am reclaiming my time. Thank you. This is an
article in Politico that was written after the dinner that we
had Monday night with the Treasury Secretary, where he
confirmed to the House Financial Services Committee that Elon
Musk does not have access to American taxpayers' personal data.
So, I am going to say it one more time, everybody that is
calling my office, everybody that is flipping out, the media
that is lying about this. The DOGE employees do not have access
to American citizens' personally identifiable information.
Their only goal is to track sources and uses and make sure that
the money that we are spending is going where it says it is
supposed to go.
This is shocking it has not been done yet, but they are
doing it now, and this is just the beginning. Again, I would
say buckle up, because this is going to keep going, and we are
going to save this country, and we are going to get out of this
ridiculous financial situation we are in. With that, Mr.
Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Ms. Crockett.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. It is the faux
outrage for me. It is as faux as faux news that I am hearing
because somehow you guys, and when I say, ``you guys,'' I am
referring to my Republican colleagues, pretend as if you are
the heroes of the story, but let me remind you who set the
house on fire. It was you all. So, let me go ahead and handle
these receipts because I know that I always have to have proof,
even though I guess our education system is failing us because
it seems like facts do not seem to faze people that vote for
you all, but I am going to do it anyway.
So, when we talk about debt, I would ask for unanimous
consent to enter into a record this article that says, ``Donald
Trump Built a National Debt So Big Even Before the Pandemic,
That It Will Weight Down the Economy for Years.''
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much. In fact, it talked about
the fact that he ran up our debt almost $8 trillion, it was
estimated to be $7.8 trillion at that time, and that it is
actually the third-biggest increase ever under any Presidential
administration. So, I do not understand how you all are going
to play the heroes.
I also want to just kind of be clear about some basic
level-setting of civics because it seems like civics is evading
us. And listen, Governor, I actually appreciate you. I know
that in today's times, for whatever reason, if you got a ``D''
or ``R'' in front of your name, it has to be all hostile.
Listen, I am a former business owner. If I was not sitting in
this seat, I would still have my law firm, but, you know, we
have rules, right? So, I am not allowed to practice law. I am
not allowed to do a lot of other things because ethics decides
that that is not really a good thing, to make sure that the
American people can trust that I do not have any divided
interest.
In fact, we do that for people that run our Treasury,
typically. So, I am curious to know if you have an elected
treasurer in your state, and you do, actually.
Governor Reynolds. We do.
Ms. Crockett. I know you do because I looked him up, and I
am curious to know. So, it is my guess that he is the one that
actually controls all of the Treasury systems that you have,
correct?
Governor Reynolds. Some of the investments.
Ms. Crockett. He controls some of the investments, but also
moneys that need to be disseminated by the state, that is done
by him, correct?
Governor Reynolds. Department of Management in the
Treasurer's Office.
Ms. Crockett. OK. In the Treasurer's Office.
Governor Reynolds. Two separate agencies.
Ms. Crockett. OK. But you have an agency that does that,
correct?
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Ms. Crockett. OK. And as you are having this agency do
that, these are people that have some sort of ethics that they
have to follow, I am sure.
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Ms. Crockett. I am going out on a limb because I do not
know how anything works in Iowa. I am just being honest with
you.
Governor Reynolds. Yes. Yes.
Ms. Crockett. OK. Here is the deal. I want the American
people to understand that Democrats are not against efficiency.
In fact, the last time that this country actually ran to the
extent that there was a balanced budget, and actually there was
a surplus, it was a Democrat in the White House. His name was
President Clinton. So, we are not against this. What we are
against is this idea that we will evade the Constitution. Or we
will evade our own constitutional--in fact, it is not even an
evasion. At this point, it feels as if you all have just
decided that you all are going to castrate your constitutional
duty and hand it over to someone who is unelected. It does not
matter how many cheerleaders he had on the field campaigning
for him. That does not mean that he gets to go in and sit atop
any of our agencies, and the fact that we had a vote today and
we asked to bring him in because we have a constitutional duty.
We all took our oath, and maybe some of you all just do not
take it seriously, but I take it seriously when I take an oath
to do a job, and my job is to look out and make sure that we do
not have any kings or queens in this country.
But it seems like you all have decided that it is going to
be Mr. King and his queen, and you all can pick which one is
which. But either way, I want to also talk about, Governor, I
am curious to know if you know these, the answers to these
questions. Which party controls the White House?
Governor Reynolds. Republican.
Ms. Crockett. Which party controls the Senate?
Governor Reynolds. Republican.
Ms. Crockett. Which party controls the House?
Governor Reynolds. Republican.
Ms. Crockett. Is that about what the makeup is in Iowa?
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Ms. Crockett. And that has allowed you to be able to get
your agenda across, correct?
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Ms. Crockett. And you have not had to bring in somebody to
basically usurp any types of norms because you worked through
the process, correct?
Governor Reynolds. Well, I did executive orders, 280
agreements----
Ms. Crockett. Yes or no. Yes or no.
Governor Reynolds. And then went to the legislature as
well. It was all of the above. All of the above. All of the
above.
Ms. Crockett. I am going to reclaim my time because I only
got so much time left. I also want to point out that you
specifically talked about that you recently had three national
declarations for disasters, and I want to enter into the
record, a unanimous consent, ``Trump Moves to Abolish FEMA,
Shift Disaster Response to States.''
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Crockett. And my final unanimous consent, I would ask,
says that, ``Mike Johnson's Budget Plan is at Risk of
Collapse,'' even though we know that you all control all three
levers of government. So, if this is what you all want to do,
then go ahead and clean it up and fix it, and just go through
the process, and honestly, there is----
Ms. Boebert. Order.
Ms. Crockett [continuing]. Nothing that we will be able to
say about it.
Ms. Boebert. Order.
Ms. Crockett. And with that, I will yield.
Chairman Comer. OK. Thank you. The gentlelady's time has
expired. The Chair recognizes Ms. Boebert from Colorado.
Ms. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The outrage here has
been absolutely unhinged. As we have seen in the media, we are
seeing Politico, who is laying folks off, and as they are being
defunded of American tax dollars, they can no longer sustain
themselves. And so, the outrage is just going to continue from
those who are no longer going to be able to support their
businesses from American taxpayers. And we simply want
accountability. We want oversight. This is the Oversight
Committee and, unfortunately, Congress has done a crap job of
oversight and accountability over quite some time, I would say
decades, and that is why we have this new commission that is
created, and Americans are grateful for it. President Trump
campaigned on having this DOGE commission to have oversight and
accountability, and it is our responsibility to codify what
happens.
I am pleased with the expedited efforts that have taken
place to really get this out in the open and expose to the
American people what their money is actually being sent to, and
let us just be honest with the American people. Unelected
bureaucrats have been funneling their hard-earned taxpayer
dollars to ridiculous and even malicious causes. DOGE is doing
the hard work to uncover the truth and make our government work
for the people rather than funding policies that are actively
hurting them. For example, Dr. Resh, in your testimony you
state that the recommendations from the Department of
Government Efficiency will exacerbate public health crises. How
is that the case when DOGE is advocating to defund EcoHealth
Alliance which was involved in the research in the Wuhan Lab
that created coronavirus, that created this global pandemic
that killed people and ended the livelihoods of many others?
Dr. Resh. My statement was in reference to across-the-board
firings without specific technology.
Ms. Boebert. I think government employees have been given
the option. They can have an----
Dr. Resh. And those that will be given the option will be
more competitive on a private market basis than those that
stay, so then you will be losing your best public employees as
opposed to----
Ms. Boebert. Were our best public employees at the Wuhan
lab of virology? Were those our best employees? Is that where
our funding was going, to the best and the brightest who
started a global pandemic?
Dr. Resh. I am saying when you make a 20-percent across the
cut without any discrimination as----
Ms. Boebert. I think there has been a lot of
inefficiencies, and I am excited to see where this goes and the
exposure of that, and, Dr. Resh, the last Administration
weaponized NGOs to aid and abet illegal aliens across and
within the interior of the United States. We saw millions of
taxpayer dollars being funneled to NGOs that were spent on
plane and bus tickets, hotel rooms, and even to coach illegal
aliens on how to illegally stay in the country. Heck, we have a
Congresswoman who is currently coaching illegal aliens on how
to stay in the country, what terms to use, even if they are
untruthful. Now, Dr. Resh, how does transporting millions of
unvetted illegal aliens into our country make America safer,
and how does stopping the funding of those NGOs harm America?
Dr. Resh. That is tangential and irrelevant to my----
Ms. Boebert. Oh, it is not irrelevant. Let us go through
the list of relevancy, shall we? When we have open borders
allowing millions of illegal aliens coming into our country
unvetted, then the relevancy is in terms of Laken Riley,
Jocelyn Nungaray, Rachel Morin, Ruby Garcia, Lizbeth Medina,
and I could go on and on and on and on with the American
citizens who were killed at the hands of illegal aliens. So, I
think it is pretty relevant to say we need to look into these
NGOs and what they are doing with these unvetted illegal aliens
coming into our country and remaining into our country. Would
you agree? Does that bring some relevancy to the topic, sir?
Dr. Resh. Not to workforce cuts across the American public
service.
Ms. Boebert. But we are also talking about the funding that
is going out. We are cutting spending at an executive level,
and I hope that we codify all of that here within these
chambers to ensure that it does not go out again.
Now, in your testimony, you also mentioned that DOGE
proposals reflect an agenda to dismantle professional
government. According to you, this is fundamentally at odds
with the principles of democratic governance. In November,
President Trump won by a decisive mandate, promising to
maximize governmental efficiency and productivity. And how are
our actions, these actions, fulfilling the President's campaign
promises fundamentally at odds with the principles of
democratic governance? And while my time is running out, I want
you to answer that, sir, but we hear about unelected folks.
Democrats did not even get a chance to vote for their own
Presidential candidate in their primary, so do not talk to me
about unelected people actually being involved in the decisions
in this country. But I would like to hear how that is at odds,
sir.
Dr. Resh. I have no response to that.
Ms. Boebert. Well, that is kind of----
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, the gentlelady's time----
Ms. Boebert. I yield. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Casar. We are
going to recognize Mr. Casar, then Mr. Jordan, and then at the
request of the witnesses, we are going to take a brief bathroom
break. So, the Chair recognizes Mr. Casar for 5 minutes, and
then after him it will be Jordan and then a brief 10-minute
break.
Mr. Casar. Chairman, I do not know why Republican Members
even show up to this Committee or to Congress when it is clear
who is really in charge of the Federal Government right now,
and that is Elon Musk. And at the beginning of this hearing,
when we asked our Republican colleagues if we could bring Mr.
Musk to this Committee, Republicans ran cover for him. They
want him hiding in the White House, tweeting, and they voted
unanimously that they did not want to hear from Elon Musk.
Supposedly, this Committee is supposed to be about rooting
out waste, fraud, and abuse, and I agree, so let us talk about
waste, fraud, and abuse. The biggest fraud in U.S. Government
right now is Elon Musk pretending to care about efficiency when
what he cares about is taking your taxpayer dollars, taking
your Medicare, taking your Medicaid, taking your Social
Security, and enriching himself and his billionaire buddies
with it. The biggest abuse in the U.S. Government right now is
Elon Musk getting $154 billion richer since the election just a
few months ago, while consolidating unprecedented power over
your money and your government. Mr. Musk invested $227 million
in Trump's election and is making billions off of it. That is
waste. That is fraud. That is abuse.
And speaking of waste, another waste is my House Republican
colleagues showing up because they waste their time. They will
not speak out about any of these abuses against working people
and taxpayers. This is the Oversight Committee, and there are
17 independent Inspectors General. They are watchdogs. They are
the oversight arm of the Federal Government, and Trump and Musk
illegally fired 17 of them, including a watchdog that was
investigating one of Musk's companies. And what I have heard
from House Republicans is either silence or defending that kind
of behavior. You guys know that it is embarrassing and it is
wrong, and that is why you voted to not have Musk here before
us.
Elon Musk is not doing anything to make government more
efficient for working people. He is using his position to more
efficiently raid your taxpayer dollars to enrich himself and
his friends. I am told that this hearing is about rightsizing
government, so I propose that we start rightsizing our Federal
Government by firing the most dangerous man in it, and that is
Elon Musk. To protect our taxpayers, we should fire Elon Musk.
To keep American Social Security numbers private, fire Elon
Musk. To protect Medicare and Medicaid, fire Elon Musk. To save
schools and our jobs, fire Elon Musk. And to protect the idea
that American people have a government for the people and by
the people and not for the ultrarich and by the ultrarich, we
must fire Elon Musk.
Attacking working families is nothing new for him. Mr.
Musk's biggest factory sits in my district, and the first thing
I did after I was elected to Congress was to call for an OSHA
investigation into the injuries and deaths of workers building
that very factory. Those were investigations to be launched by
the Department of Labor where later today, we are hearing that
Musk's minions are going to go and maybe start shutting down
parts of that key agency that is built to oversee big
corporations and defend the interests of workers. Musk's
companies, like Tesla, have been sued and found liable for many
labor violations. Screwing over working people is just part of
the game for him. He has been found liable for improperly
giving non-safety training to construction workers and
withholding wages. OSHA fined Tesla for exposing workers to
hazardous chemicals without proper training and monitoring.
OSHA opened up investigation into deaths of workers at a Tesla
Gigafactory in 2024. SpaceX, another one of Musk's companies,
was found responsible for the deaths of one of their workers,
Lonnie LeBlanc, due to head trauma that he got on the job.
So, now Musk has seemingly unlimited power to take
advantage not just of his own employees, not just of American
consumers, but of all Americans: unlimited power to Americans'
data, unlimited power to choke off funding meant for Americans
and the programs that people count on. Enough is enough. But
thankfully our country is not one of Musk's companies. Our
country is ours. A billionaire whose career is built on the
abuse and exploitation of workers should not have unlimited
power in this country. He should be before this Committee, and
when he comes before this Committee, if somebody wants to do
the right thing, all you got to do is turn on your mic and say,
fire Elon Musk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. Before I
recognize Mr. Jordan, Ms. Boebert, did you have a----
Ms. Boebert. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I have a document I would
like to submit for the record.
Chairman Comer. Proceed.
Ms. Boebert. So, this is a press release from the White
House: ``At USAID, waste and abuse runs deep,'' and just some
examples: $2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam;
$47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia; $32,000 for
transgender comic books in Peru; $2 million for sex changes and
LBGT activism in Guatemala; $6 million to fund tourism in
Egypt.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman? This becomes a statement and
not just a----
Ms. Boebert. And these are just some of the many, many
examples, and I would like to submit that to the record.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Boebert. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes the Chairman of
the House Judiciary Committee for 5 minutes.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Schatz, is the Federal
Government too big?
Mr. Schatz. Yes, the expenditures certainly are, which
makes the entity itself too big.
Mr. Jordan. Seven trillion dollars in annual spending, 400
agencies and subagencies, 1,000 boards and commissions. I think
anyone, maybe even the people on the other side of the aisle, I
think anyone would say, almost everyone would say, that is too
big. And when you have big government, does big government have
a tendency to spend taxpayer money on stupid things?
Mr. Schatz. That is part of the reason that we are here,
and it is one of the things that Citizens Against Government
Waste has been documenting for many, many years.
Mr. Jordan. You have been highlighting this for, like, a
hundred years. I mean, I have known you, yes, for a long time.
Mr. Schatz. Organizations----
Mr. Jordan. God bless you for persisting.
Mr. Schatz. Organization, 41 years. I have been there 39.
Mr. Jordan. Yes. And when you spend money, when you are the
person spending money on something stupid, you just assume, you
would just kind of hope that people do not really notice that,
right? If you are in the government and you are spending--what
did Ms. Boebert just say, $32,000 for a transgender comic in
Peru, $16 million in gender development offices--you are
spending money on stuff like that, you just kind of hope that
people probably do not notice that. Is that probably fair to
say? That is kind of human nature, I would think.
Mr. Schatz. Well, that is part of the problem is that the
taxpayers do not know exactly how the money is being spent
because there is not the transparency that, for example, Iowa,
Ohio, Arizona, and other states have. We should be able to push
a button and find out how your tax dollars are being spent.
Mr. Jordan. And so, it is understandable why everyone on
the left, all the proponents of Big Government, all the
supporters of Big Government, all the people getting the
taxpayer money from Big Government, it is understandable why
they are attacking Elon Musk because he is pointing out the
stupid things that government spends money on. Is that fair to
say?
Mr. Schatz. Well, he is not making it up, and, in fact,
many of the recommendations he has made have been made for
years.
Mr. Jordan. Great point. He is not making it up. He is
citing every single thing.
Mr. Schatz. Right.
Mr. Jordan. I am sorry.
Mr. Schatz. No, it is there. I mean, look, the Department
of Education has been something that was recommended by
President Reagan to be eliminated and many others since then.
U.S. Digital Service--DOGE found U.S. Digital Service was
duplicating the private sector. Same with 18F at GSA. So, he
has already helped save money by doing that.
Mr. Jordan. So, Democrats, instead of saying, yes, we
should probably not spend $32,000 for a transgender comic in
Peru. Yes, it is probably not a wise expenditure of taxpayer
money to have Sesame Street played in Baghdad, Iraq. On all
that list, instead of saying we should figure out how we stop
that, they are saying, no, no, no, we got to stop the guy who
is pointing out the stupid things that government is spending
taxpayer money, the money that people in the 4th District, that
I represent, their money on these kind of stupid things.
Now, it is being reported that there is something even
maybe worse going on. It has been reported today that media
outlets were paid millions of dollars by USAID. Now, the media
outlets are saying this is for subscriptions to their
publication, but I find that interesting, and one of the
particulars that is pointed out, the FDA paid Politico $517,000
for 37 subscriptions. That seems kind of high to me. Does that
seem that way to you, Mr. Schatz?
Mr. Schatz. Doing the math quickly, that seems excessive,
yes.
Mr. Jordan. Yes. That seems a lot for now. Maybe there is
some explanation here, you know. Maybe Politico is so darn
important that it costs that much and taxpayer money should be
spent, but I find that interesting, particularly $517,000 for
37 subscriptions, when it is the government paying the press.
Does that in some way maybe jeopardize the free press that we
are supposed to have in our great country?
Mr. Schatz. Well, it is certainly something that taxpayers
probably did not know until today. I did not know that.
Mr. Jordan. Did not know until today, and it is also
government paying the press that kind of money. Thirty-seven
subscriptions will give you half a million dollars. Might
Politico write favorable things about the particular
administration that is paying that money? I do not know. I am
not saying that happened, but you can sure look at some of the
things that has been reported by some of the press,
particularly Politico, and you cannot help but ask that
question.
Governor Reynolds, I got, like, 50 seconds. You came all
the way from the great state of Iowa. I will give you a chance
to comment on any of the things I raised there, but I do think
this is amazing. The guy who is pointing out the stupid things
the government spends money on, that is who gets attacked
versus, no, let us fix the stupid things and not spend money on
them. I just do not get that, and I think the American people
have common sense, and that is how they look at it. My guess
is, I know lots of good people in Iowa, they have lots of
common sense, that is probably how they look at it.
Governor Reynolds. That is exactly how they look at it $36
trillion in debt, $2 trillion annually being added to the debt.
Kevin and I have 11 grandchildren. I want them to have the same
opportunity I did growing up, and I appreciate President Trump
trying to rightsize the ship and get it back in line, and I do
not hear any answers to the contrary. What are their answers
except for leave everything the way it is, and that is not
working, so thank you.
Mr. Jordan. That is not what you did in Iowa. You did not
leave everything the way it is.
Governor Reynolds. That is not what we did.
Mr. Jordan. And you changed things, and taxpayers got more
efficient government, which is exactly what we want. I yield
back, thank you.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back.
Pursuant to the previous order, the Committee will recess
for 5 minutes to accommodate a witness request. This Committee
stands in recess.
[Recess.]
Chairman Comer. All right. The Committee will come back to
order, and Governor Reynolds has an unmovable conflict, and
must leave at 2 p.m., that has just arisen. Without objection,
the witness will be excused at that time, and the Committee
will proceed.
Without objection, so ordered.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Burlison from Missouri for 5
minutes.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the
witnesses for coming and for whoever is watching, but what you
are witnessing is the dying scream of addicts who realize that
tomorrow they are going into recovery because this town--
Congress--has been addicted on spending opium, or other
people's money, for a long time. And what you are witnessing
today is this desperate cry of individuals who do not want to
see fiscal responsibility. But we have gotten to this point and
it is a point of we are getting close to where we are at a
point of no return.
And so, the group called EPIC, which is the Economic Policy
Innovation Center, said that we are nearing a fiscal cliff. We
are nearing a point in which we are going to start going down a
debt spiral. They say that that will occur under current
policies if we do not cut any spending in the next 15 years. It
gets worse. Fifteen years seems like a long ways out, but you
have got to slow this freight train of spending down to have
any impact 15 years from now. In addition, the Social Security
is going to go bankrupt in 8 years, right, and then Medicare
has another ticking time bomb in just 10 short years. So, look,
the spending spree is over. We have got to return to some form
of fiscal sanity or we will not have a country. This is not a
Republican problem or a Democratic problem. This is a math
problem, period.
And so, I would have expected Democratic colleagues to see
and recognize that this is a serious problem, and let us all
get behind this, and figure out a way to solve this problem.
And the easy way to do that with the least harm is to figure
out how to make government more efficient with the dollars that
we are bringing in, right, and reduce that burden on the
American people. As was said, we are at $36 trillion in debt.
Our interest is over a trillion dollars a year, which now
eclipses all other spending. We are at 120 percent of debt to
GDP, so it is absolutely unsustainable. We have never been at
that level of debt. Actually, we are beyond the level of debt
that we were just after World War II, and we had just finished
fighting a World War. This puts us in a very critical situation
where, if we are faced with any kind of global conflict, we
have no money, we have no room to go.
And then, when it was talked about some of the
opportunities for waste and bringing in outside consultants to
identify and expose some things because, you know this town is
a little bit incestuous. I mean, they generally do not think
outside of the box. This town is one really good at doing one
thing and that is saying why something cannot be done, right?
So, it is good to have people outside of the box come in, like
Mr. Musk. And I want to ask Governor Reynolds, thank you for
being here today. I understand in Iowa, you were DOGE before
DOGE was cool, right? So, in Iowa, you rely on outside
expertise to come in, correct?
Governor Reynolds. Yes, we did, because, otherwise, I mean,
when you are in it, you see it one way and you get accustomed
to what you are doing, and I think it is beneficial to have
somebody from the outside come in and take a look at some of
the practices and some of the initiatives, and how we are
operating. So, it was actually beneficial. We hired a
consultant to do the alignment, to help really manage it, but
to also help us compare how we were doing business with other
states. And we are standing up Iowa DOGE, and we are bringing
this private sector in again for that very reason so they can
look at some of the processes and how government operates, and
give us recommendations on what we could do different.
Mr. Burlison. Yes. Would you embrace if Elon Musk offered
to you to come in with no pay, with a team of people with, you
know, 200-level IQs, all with no pay?
Governor Reynolds. Yes, we would.
Mr. Burlison. Would you embrace that?
Governor Reynolds. Yes, I would welcome that, especially,
when we look at the legacy systems and the antiquated systems
that government is working under to have somebody from the
private sector, you know, that risks their own capital on an
idea to come in and take a look at how we can make government
better, I think would be a huge benefit for the taxpayers of
Iowa.
Mr. Burlison. I think DOGE immediately, just in the hiring,
probably raised the average IQ of Federal workers here. Let me
ask a last question of Mr. Schatz. I understand that the
Citizens Against Government Waste publishes an annual report
called ``Prime Cuts,'' which makes recommendations. Could you
tell us about some of the latest versions of this report and
what kind of savings taxpayers, you know, might be able to
find, what DOGE might be able to find?
Mr. Schatz. ``Prime Cuts'' comes out annually. We are
working on the report for 2024, but 2023 is $5.1 trillion over
5 years. It addresses things I have discussed already:
technology, telecommunications, broadband consolidation, sale
of Federal property, which saves $15 billion over 5 years. Some
of them make perfect sense and a lot of them are commonsense,
and that is something that, I think, is also in short supply in
Washington, DC.
Mr. Burlison. Thank you, thank you. My time has expired.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Pressley from
Massachusetts.
Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Mr. Chair. By the hour, Donald
Trump, Elon Musk, and his enablers advance their extremist,
anti-equity, un-American agenda, dismantling decades of civil
rights progress, upending livelihoods, incomes, and lives, and
adversely affecting something they claim to care about, the
GDP, because all data supports that diversity, equity, and
inclusion is actually good business.
Governor Reynolds, my Republican colleagues invited you
here today to promote what they see as a model of governance.
Simply put, Republicans' vision of America is to be more like
Iowa. Governor Reynolds, let us learn more about the state. Do
you know what percentage of Iowans are White and what
percentage are Black?
Governor Reynolds. I do not know the exact percentages now,
by far, larger percentage of White population.
Ms. Pressley. That is correct. Iowa is 90 percent White----
Governor Reynolds. Ninety, yes.
Ms. Pressley [continuing]. And only 4.5 percent Black, so
that is drastically different from the national population. So,
when Republicans suggest Iowa should be a national model, they
are advocating for a government that does not reflect our
country. So let us talk about what this model of governance
actually means in practice. In Iowa, you signed state Senate
Bill 2385 to eliminate more than 80 state boards and
commissions, including those representing Black Iowans,
Latinos, women, people with disabilities, and Asian-Pacific
Islanders, communities that are marginalized and vulnerable and
have fought for decades to have a seat at the table. Now,
Republicans call this fiscal responsibility. I just call it
erasure.
Governor Reynolds, the Iowa Legislative Services Agency
conducted a nonpartisan analysis of that bill. Do you know how
much money was saved when you eliminated those commissions?
Governor Reynolds. Actually, it was not about saving money.
It was about putting more resources behind the Department of
Human Rights so that we could actually provide them more
resources for minority communities.
Ms. Pressley. Reclaiming my time. Reclaiming my time. Let
me help you with the math. Roughly $112,000 in your state
budget was saved, so that is .001 percent, barely a rounding
error. So, honestly, given your current salary, Iowans would
have saved more money just by eliminating your salary.
Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter the LSA Fiscal
Note into the record.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Pressley. In addition to cutting boards and
commissions, Iowa started closing government agencies. Now,
this is the same thing that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are
trying to do at the national level. Now, Governor Reynolds, let
us be clear. I have no problem with Iowans, but I do with your
leadership. So, let us look at the results, shall we? In Iowa,
there have been skyrocketing maternal mortality rates.
Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record
this article titled, ``Iowa's Maternal Death Rates Rise as
Birthing Units Close.''
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Pressley. In Iowa, students test scores have been
declining.
Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record
this article titled, ``Iowa Scores in 50 State Education
Rankings Declined from Years Past.''
Chairman Comer . Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Pressley. In Iowa, more kids are going hungry. Is this
the kind of government efficiency you all are talking about?
Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record
this article titled, ``Iowa's Food Pantries Hit Record High
Numbers This Summer.''
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Pressley. So let us be clear about what Republicans are
actually doing. You are making people poorer. You are making
people hungrier, more vulnerable, and gutting their civil
rights. These attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion, they
were never about efficiency. They certainly were never about
merit. It is just a deliberate, calculated attempt to erase
marginalized communities from government, while eliminating
essential services for workers, families, and the people that
we are actually elected to protect. They want a country for and
by millionaires that advances White supremacy, and that is the
real agenda, and I will do everything I can to speak truth to
power and to stand in the way of that. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentlewoman yields back. We got to go
to two Democrats now. The Chair recognizes Ms. Randall.
Ms. Randall. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and
thank you for our panelists for taking the time to come before
Committee and testify today.
I think we have heard a lot of frustration from my
Democratic colleagues in this Committee today, and, you know,
on my part. It is frustration that is reflected in the calls
and the emails that we are getting from our neighbors,
neighbors who are scared at the attempts to come after programs
that keep them alive. A Republican colleague equated this work
to recovering from addiction, and I think it is important to
point out that many government programs are funding, with
Medicaid dollars and others, addiction and recovery support
that is literally saving people's lives. So, if we are going to
spend time dismissing those important lifesaving programs, the
important lives of the people we represent, I feel like we are
doing a disservice to our neighbors.
I want to talk about some of my neighbors in the 6th
congressional District, a district that I have mentioned
before, includes many Federal workers, many Federal employees,
27,000 in the 6th congressional District, making up almost 8
percent of our workforce. And these employees are doing lots of
different jobs, you know, making sure that we get our mail,
providing healthcare service to veterans, and also ensuring
that our national defense is well staffed and ready to protect
our country when necessary.
I got an email from one such employee who works for Naval
Base Kitsap, who had served for 6 years, 4 aboard the USS Jimmy
Carter, carrying out missions critical to our national
security. And after transitioning to the Federal Government, he
finds himself subjected to daily harassment, despite the only
goal being to provide for his family. He has not had a day off
in 2 weeks because he is supporting the PSNS-IMF mission and is
rated 70-percent disabled by the VA, but refuses to let that
stop him from doing his job to protect our country. And when my
colleagues say that the average IQ has vastly increased because
we have let unelected Elon Musk and his cronies enter our
government buildings, I am offended on behalf of my
constituents, who are working tirelessly to ensure that our
government programs are run to the best of their abilities to
make sure that our Country is safe and our neighbors are cared
for.
I believe in government accountability. I represented the
people of Washington for 6 years in the state legislature,
where we have one of the most transparent budgeting operations,
and we have a Triple A bond rating. We have good budgeting
practices and good programs that invest in community. I believe
that government can do both, can invest in our neighbors and be
accountable, but we cannot be accountable when we fire all of
our inspector generals and take away that watchdog authority.
Dr. Resh, our veterans have sacrificed so much for us, and
a 2024 report by the VA inspector general noted that 86 percent
of Veterans Health Administration facilities reported severe
occupational staff shortages from medical officers, 82 percent
had shortages for nurses, and yet we are seeing an unelected
billionaire striving to immediately decrease 5 to 10 percent
across-the-board cuts to our government's workforce, including
the VA. What would happen to agencies and departments like the
VA if 5 percent of their employees suddenly left their jobs?
Dr. Resh. Well, again, when you are making broad cuts
indiscriminately, you are not choosing, per se, poor
performers. You are just making blanket cuts. Again, it is
going to create an environment of fear, an environment of
uncertainty, and you are certainly not going to be attracting
the best people to public service under those conditions. And
so, what I would say to you is that what it will do is diminish
the very capacity that you are looking for in government. It is
almost as if by losing the best people that work for you, being
a corporation, firing your accountants, and expecting profits.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady's time has expired. The
Chair recognizes Mr. Fallon from Texas.
Mr. Fallon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, you hear a
lot of interesting things when you sit on the Oversight
Committee. DOGE, it is curious that it seems to me that that is
like a dirty word for many Democrats. They recoil when they
hear it--DOGE. Or if they say the word, ``DOGE,'' it is at
least a bitter taste in the mouth, very acidic. That is a DOGE.
But what does it stand for? I will tell you what it does not
stand for. It does not stand for oligarch, it does not stand
for billionaire, it does not stand for unelected billionaire,
it does not stand for Project 2025, and it sure as hell does
not stand for Elon Musk. It is the Department of Government
Efficiency. Who in their right mind would oppose our Federal
Government operating with more--wait for it--efficiency? Who in
their right mind believes that a 1.7 million strong civilian
Federal workforce operates currently at maximum efficiency? Of
course, it does not.
But I figured I would hear certain things, and our
colleagues across the aisle did not disappoint. They went to
the tact of venerating the flawless Federal worker without whom
we would all see our lives disintegrate before our very eyes.
How dare we even question these benevolent public servants? In
far too many instances, Federal bureaucrats have become not the
public servants, but they have evolved into public masters.
Now, do some Federal workers do a fabulous job? Absolutely. Do
some Federal Agencies provide critical services for Americans?
Of course, but not all, and where there is not value being
provided, we need to trim the excess, we need to eliminate
waste, we need to expose the abuse, and we need to streamline
efficiency.
Take, for instance, the Department of Education. When you
say you want to eliminate the Department of Education,
liberals' heads will explode, but it was formed in 1979, and
when you look at the proficiency in math and reading from 1979
to current day, it is stagnant. It is a rounding error. It goes
up a little, goes down a little bit. But when you look at
adjusted for inflation, the spending per pupil on education, it
was $9,615 in 1979. It is now just under $20,000, so, we spent
double the money, but it is not reaching classroom performance.
Block grants would be a far better way, rather than spending
$79 billion on a Department of Education at the Federal level.
We went to the moon without a Department of Education. So, the
growth in the Federal Government has been staggering. If you
look at just the last 100 years, in 1929, the Federal
Government spent $3.6 billion. Adjusted for inflation, that is
$66 billion. Today, that number is $7,300 billion, a 110 times
in 100 years or 11,100 percent in a century. There are 400
executive branch agencies and subagencies and 1,000 Federal
boards and commissions.
I think we should look to the states, and we have Governor
Reynolds here. And Governor Reynolds, I commend you for taking
the cabinet position numbers from 37 to 16 and eliminating 500
unfilled positions and then eliminating 83 state boards and
commissions. How much is it projected to save your taxpayers,
Governor?
Governor Reynolds. In the first 18 months, it saved $217
million, and that exceeded what our original projections were
for 4 years. So, I will continue to see savings as we move
forward as we have really had visibility into the agencies, and
look for opportunities to continue to make us better.
Mr. Fallon. Two hundred 17 million dollars, and having been
in a state legislature for 8 years, that is real money at the
state level, particularly in a state the size of Iowa. What is
the feedback you are receiving? Is it Iowans? Not Iowaits,
right? Iowans?
Governor Reynolds. Iowans, yes.
Mr. Fallon. Iowans, OK. What do Iowans tell you about this?
Governor Reynolds. Well, they appreciate it. First of all,
you know, I have an obligation to make government accountable
to the taxpayers, and I want to continue to bring the taxpayer
burden down on Iowans, and by keeping spending in check and
making government more efficient, we are going to be able to do
that. I started my comments today, when I took office, our
individual income tax rate was 8.98 percent. Today, January 1,
2025, is 3.8 percent. So, when we saw 9-percent inflation under
the Biden Administration, this was a way that I could help give
back to Iowans some of their hardworking dollars so that they
could offset some of the cost of gas and groceries that they
were experiencing.
Mr. Fallon. Governor, what advice would you give the
Federal Government as we try to streamline our services for the
American taxpayer?
Governor Reynolds. Go for it. Everybody is going to tell
you, you cannot do it. I have not heard any other suggestions
on doing something different. In Iowa, it had been 40 years
since we have taken a look at the structure of government. That
is ridiculous. It was bloated. It had grown, and we could do
things better, and this has been an opportunity. It changed the
culture of our agencies, our cabinet, and most importantly, our
employers. They feel like they are making a difference and they
are making a difference in how they are serving Iowans.
Mr. Fallon. Amen. Thank you. And coming from Texas and
looking at the growth of Texas and Florida, people vote with
their feet, and they are moving to the states like, you know,
Iowa, Tennessee, Texas, Florida because we are doing it the
right way, and at the Federal level, Mr. Chairman, we can and
we must do better. Thank you, Governor, and thank you,
Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Subramanyam
from Virginia.
Mr. Subramanyam. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, I have
just been listening to the comments today during this hearing,
and I hear these things like we want to trim the inefficiencies
in government. We want to do the least amount of harm, is what
someone said. We want to get rid of the low-performing
employees. But that is not quite what is happening, is it,
right? These are blanket cuts across the board that are
indiscriminate. And let us be clear, this DOGE effort, it
cannot be about just getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse,
because if you look at our Federal spending, civil servants are
a drop in the bucket when it comes to our budget. The math does
not work actually. In fact, civil servants actually save us a
lot of money down the road. They prevent illnesses. They
prevent a lot of bad things from happening that would cost us
more money down the road. So, you know, yes, there are
inefficiencies in government. Let us fix them. That is
bipartisan. I have done that work myself, but, you know, if the
kitchen cabinets in your house are broken, fix them. Do not
burn the house down, right?
And I do not think this is about waste, fraud, and abuse. I
think this is about revenge over civil servants who may have
slighted the President. I think this is about control over the
Federal agencies and Federal Government, ones who especially
had actual oversight and did actual regulation of companies
that were slighting consumers. And this is about stopping the
protections of consumers, and it is about having civil servants
with a certain ideology, and this is not legal and this is not
constitutional. And I wish we had the DOGE folks in here today,
but we do not. So, we just have the Governor of Iowa, and so I
will just ask Governor Reynolds, when you made DOGE reforms in
Iowa, did you freeze all spending while you were doing your
review?
Governor Reynolds. No, we did not.
Mr. Subramanyam. And when you brought in those consultants,
did you let those consultants take over your payment systems
and give access to every person's personal health information
to them?
Governor Reynolds. We did not.
Mr. Subramanyam. And do you think it is OK for outside
consultants with no security clearance to handle classified
documents?
Governor Reynolds. No.
Mr. Subramanyam. And do you think it is OK for outside
consultants to handle sensitive data haphazardly that could
cause cybersecurity breaches? I am just curious.
Governor Reynolds. You know, that has not been our
experience in Iowa.
Mr. Subramanyam. Yes, and we do not know who the people
are. At least you knew who your consultants were, right? We
even tried to go into the Treasury building and meet with them,
we tried to go into USAID and meet with them, and we were
turned away, us, Members of Congress. But the reason I know
what is going on inside those buildings is because I have
constituents who actually work in those buildings, and let me
just tell you some of the stories I am hearing.
One at USDA said that they have frozen funding to control
invasive species protections, which would cost us hundreds of
millions of dollars if these pests get into our country and
devastate crops and livestock in states like Iowa; or at one
Agency, one of the DOGE employees came in and said just cut 50
percent of the employees indiscriminately, and then the DOGE
employee actually started living inside the building. So, our
Federal Agencies are now Airbnbs, apparently. And now we have
nuclear scientists that are resigning. We have Ph.D.s. They are
not dumb people. They may not have 200 IQs, but it does not
seem like the DOGE people do either. But what they are doing is
they are resigning because they do not want to put up with this
anymore, and it is going to be hard to replace these folks. It
is going to be a brain drain on our Federal Government.
This is not the rightsizing of government. This is the
dumbsizing of government, and it has to stop, and Congress has
oversight over this. This Committee has oversight over this,
but what are we doing about it? We are talking to the Governor
of Iowa. No offense. We are talking to think tanks. We are
talking to folks that are not actually doing this work. Let us
actually give the American people answers, let us give our
constituents answers, and let us actually use Congress' powers
to fight this or at least figure out how we can work together
to fix what is wrong in government. I am down to do that. I
know both sides of the aisle want to fix what is wrong in
government. The American people deserve to know, though, what
is going on right now, why it is happening, and how to fix
this, but what is happening right now is way overstepping the
bounds of executive power. It is overstepping Congress' power.
We are getting rid of agencies that Congress authorized. We are
going way over the line here, and this is unprecedented and
needs to stop.
And so, we are going to continue to ask questions. We are
going to continue to ask for hearings, and we are going to
continue to ask for the people who are actually doing this
because we want answers. I yield my time to the Ranking Member.
Mr. Connolly. And I would just ask the gentleman from
Virginia, and we want to add to that, we want Elon Musk to come
here, since he is an unelected, unaccountable, major player in
all of this, unlike the process in Iowa, which was transparent
and accountable, in order to answer to this Committee in our
legitimate oversight functions. Is that not correct?
Mr. Subramanyam. Absolutely. That is correct.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the gentleman.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes myself for the
purpose of asking questions.
Governor Reynolds, again, thank you for being here. You are
a role model for government efficiency, that is why we asked
you to come in, and you have done a tremendous job explaining
what you did in Iowa, as we work, at least on this side of the
aisle, to sincerely try to reform government and reduce
unnecessary spending in Washington. I understand you were asked
a question that mischaracterized a bill you signed a couple
years ago that addressed the Iowa State Auditor. Can you talk
about why the legislature passed the bill?
Governor Reynolds. Yes. The bill was passed, again, to
promote government efficiency, so it completely fell in line
with the government efficiency and alignment bill that we were
working on. And what it did, is it required that two government
agencies to mediate conflicts rather than going to the court
and racking up legal bills that the taxpayers have to pay for,
so it did not limit the Auditors' access to necessary
information. It was more about the process of when two agencies
disagreed that they could actually mediate their conflicts
instead of taking it through the courts racking up additional
cost on taxpayers.
Chairman Comer. Right. Like you worked with your
legislature to amend laws that needed change to complete your
alignment, President Trump has said he will work with Congress
where he needs to, but he will take executive action where he
can. You did that too, correct?
Governor Reynolds. I did the same thing. When we started, I
did it through 28E agreements. I had one Director acting for
both Public Health and Human Services. We did it through a 28E
or an MOU. We did a proof of concept, and then we took it
through the legislature. I also did executive orders with the
rules moratorium. We put that and initiated that with an
executive order, and then when we took the next step, we
actually took it through Congress when it needed a statute
change to implement some of the ideas that we did, either
through an executive order that I stood up or through a 28E.
Then we brought in the Congress and utilized them to make the
statute reflect for what we were doing.
Chairman Comer. Great. You eliminated a host of state
agencies, commissions. It saved money and streamlined the state
bureaucracy. I wonder, did you encounter opposition from
entrenched interest when you did that?
Governor Reynolds. You know, we really did not, but I will
say we did a lot of the homework on the front end, and these
were commonsense changes.
Chairman Comer. Right.
Governor Reynolds. As I talked about, you cannot have
different functions spread about across multiple agencies and
expect to be efficient. So, we brought in the directors early,
we brought in the leaders, we brought in the Chairs, we worked,
reached out to stakeholders, but no. And the few incidents
where there were some concerns that were raised, it never came
to bear.
Chairman Comer. So, it sounds like people in Iowa were
serious about reforming government.
Governor Reynolds. Yes.
Chairman Comer. I do not get that feeling in Washington,
DC, at least with half of the Congress. What sort of blowback
did these proposals get when they were first announced?
Governor Reynolds. Well, again, I mean, we had not looked
at the government structure for 40 years, so I do not think
they were surprised. I had done a complete tax overhaul. Again,
I started with the merger between Public Health and with Human
Services, and so I had a great proof of concept. So, as we
worked with the directors, we were also able to anticipate what
some of the arguments might be, what some of the opposition
would be, so we could do the research on the front end to be
able to provide the answers to the individuals about why we
were doing what we did, and it was very, very effective. But it
is hard to argue that it does not make sense to not have
licensing spread across 11 agencies or to put 100 troopers back
on the road by putting your Motor Vehicle Enforcement Unit in
with the Department of Public Safety. That is 100 troopers that
we were able to put on the road.
Chairman Comer. Absolutely. Did some say that your
proposals would disrupt government services and lead to other
problems?
Governor Reynolds. A lot of it was the existing--maybe some
of the agencies that we were moving off the cabinet----
Chairman Comer. The agencies, yes.
Governor Reynolds. It was the agencies, not the
individuals, not Iowans, that had the most pushback.
Chairman Comer. I think that is who is leading a lot of
the----
Governor Reynolds. It was the agencies.
Chairman Comer [continuing]. Fear and criticism of Elon
Musk. I think it is some of the Federal agencies and Federal
employees who are about to be disrupted.
Governor Reynolds. Yes, yes. That saw kind of their
territory being uprooted.
Chairman Comer. So, were their fears proven to be
overblown? Was there damage, if any?
Governor Reynolds. There was not damage, and we have not
had really any pushback whatsoever, and I keep saying this, but
even the employees and the agencies, they love the culture that
we are creating. There is actually more upward mobility within
the agencies because we have broadened their scope on what they
can impact, and they love that. They like being a part of that.
Chairman Comer. Were people in Iowa ever allowed to work
from home for years after COVID?
Governor Reynolds. No, not for years.
Chairman Comer. OK. So, that is part of the problem. I
think that is what set the ball rolling of fear and opposition
among a lot of the Federal employees are so many in this town
that that are still working from home because of COVID years
later. So, they have been brought back to work. And now we are
talking about bringing agencies in and letting them justify
their existence and cutting agencies, and cutting wasteful
spending, and eliminating duplicative services, and eliminating
duplicative agencies, and it has just created all this fear and
mass hysteria with my colleagues across the aisle. But we are
committed to work with this Administration to reduce and
eliminate unnecessary spending and wasteful spending, and
hopefully, we will be able to do that like you did in Iowa.
Governor Reynolds. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. Thank you, Governor.
Governor Reynolds. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Chairman Comer. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Ansari.
Ms. Ansari. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the
witnesses for being here today. This is an unprecedented moment
in our Nation's history. Donald Trump and an unelected
billionaire, Elon Musk, are illegally dismantling our
government, agency by agency, and illegally stealing your data,
your money, and your services. I would love for Mr. Musk to
come here and testify before this Committee so we can
understand his qualifications to do this because last I
checked, running a social media platform does not qualify you
for understanding how the U.S. Government works and making sure
that it can operate and serve the American people.
One of my Republican colleagues just went after the IQ of
Federal workers. They want us to think that Federal workers are
faceless, nameless bureaucrats, roaming in the halls of
Washington, DC, when the reality is that over 85 percent of
Federal employees live outside of Washington, DC, and they are
your neighbors, your friends, and your families. More than
34,000 Federal employees live in Arizona, and about 7,000 live
in my district. They make sure that your highways are running
smoothly and safely so we can get to work on time. They make
sure your grandparents get their Social Security checks on time
so that they can afford food.
In my district, we have multiple VA health centers to make
sure our veterans get access to basic healthcare. Maricopa
County, one of the largest counties in the United States, has
over 245,000 veterans who do not know if they are going to keep
getting their benefits. That is absurd and disrespectful to so
many Arizonans who put their lives on the line for this
country. Because of the Musk funding freezes, I had
constituents calling my office panicking about whether they
would be able to get urgent surgeries. Renters on subsidies are
distressed about whether or not they will get aid or get
evicted and end up on the streets. Even after Trump realized
how disastrous his misguided freezes were and reversed some of
them, there are healthcare clinics in my district that are
laying off staff and cutting critical programs, like STD
prevention and substance abuse care, because they were labeled
as DEI. Republicans want to take a vote about fentanyl later
today, and yet they are cutting care to get people off of
fentanyl.
I previously served as the vice mayor of Phoenix, Arizona,
the fifth largest city in the country, and I can tell you
firsthand how much Federal funding and agencies matter to a
city like Phoenix. It literally keeps your grandparents and
your children fed, your streets safe, your public safety and
police and fire running, makes sure public transportation is
operating, and that air conditioning is running during our
extremely hot summers. While Trump and Musk are allegedly
concerned about making our government more efficient, they want
to lay off and dismantle the very people and departments who
are keeping the country running. These loyal, dedicated
employees are doing more and more with less and have been for
decades.
[Chart]
Ms. Ansari. This graph shows the Federal workforce. It has
remained at nearly the same level for 50 years, while the U.S.
population has grown by 100 million people. The bottom line is
that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are lying to you. They are
lying to the American people under the guise of efficiency.
They are dismantling every department. That is not efficiency.
They are breaking down the government illegally, from USAID,
that is vital for national security, to the Department of
Education, to the Department of Labor, to the Environmental
Protection Agency. They are going after your healthcare, your
schools, your safety, your data, illegally and unvetted. And
what is the ultimate aim for all of this? To distract the
American people, to cut a little bit of money so that they can
gift their billionaire buddies with massive tax cuts. Just
watch them. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Connolly. Would you yield to the Ranking Member?
Ms. Ansari. I yield back to the Ranking Member.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you. Just real quickly. And does Elon
Musk bring some specialty or some expertise in terms of
ameliorating, or cutting back, or pruning, or making
qualitative judgments about the value of the programs you
described that are being hurt right now? Does he bring some
special expertise to that task?
Ms. Ansari. He does not. He has not shown any interest in
the issues that affect Phoenix or any other city that I have
heard of.
Mr. Connolly. And that would be quite different than the
process that we saw unfold in the reform effort in Iowa, would
it not?
Ms. Ansari. What I heard from the Governor was very
different than what I have seen thus far. There were no funding
freezes. You know, programs were actually being evaluated. It
sounds like what was happening in Iowa was actually about
efficiency where this is about illegally dismantling our
government and taking away from the American people.
Mr. Connolly. I thank my colleague for yielding.
Chairman Comer. Pursuant to the previous order, Governor
Reynolds is excused, and, Governor, thank you so much for
appearing here today.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. McGuire.
Mr. McGuire. I would ask the Governor a question, but I
understand you have to go, but I just cannot tell you how much
our country is grateful to what you have done in Iowa, and I am
so excited that you are going to continue that type of
efficiency and work with DOGE and with President Trump's
Administration. We have a great country and it needs to make
sense, and I love what you said. We need the best practices and
the right people. Thank you.
So, my questions, I will divert those questions a little
bit, but first of all, I would say is that I do not think we
can remind folks, especially folks on the other side, enough,
is that through the grace of God, President Trump won a mandate
on November 5. He won the popular vote, the Electoral College,
and the American people have spoken. I do not understand why
every time he puts in an executive order or makes a decision,
it surprises folks because every decision I am seeing is what
he campaigned on, and that is what the American people voted
for.
I would tell you this: there is a war on common sense, and
it is really an effort for all of us to bring our country back
to common sense. We have to have a meritocracy. We have to have
the right people in the right place, or people get killed, and
we do not have time to go over all the examples. I would say,
as a small business owner, if the government was a business,
the government would be out of business. We are spending more
per day than we bring in per day, and that is not sustainable.
If the government were to build a car, first of all, it
would cost overruns, it would cost a million dollars, and
nobody in this room would buy it. It is amazing what the free
market can do and how innovative it is. Elon Musk created this
rocket for 10 times cheaper what it would cost the government
to do the same thing. And I heard some folks on the other side
talk about these young people involved in what is going on with
our data, but I want to remind them that young people are very
capable. You ought to research the ages of our founding
fathers, like Thomas Jefferson, when they created this amazing
country. Young people saved the world during World War II on
the Normandy beaches from Nazism.
So, young people are quite capable, and if you have the
bright young minds, I got to tell you, as a veteran, if you
saved my life on the battlefield, I would not care if you call
yourself a Democrat, Republican, Independent. I do not care if
you are young or old, or pink or blue. We are all Americans,
and we are in big trouble, and I think we are on the way to a
sovereign debt crisis because we are spending so much. And I
hear this talk, and we all know the government is not
efficient. We, in corporate America, and the corporate world is
talking about how people perform better face-to-face in an
office environment, and so we want to bring people back to
work. Yet folks on the other side are saying it is a terrible
thing to bring people back to work. I got to tell you, people
in my district have to go to work every day, and they do not
understand why people who work in the government do not have to
go back to work.
We also heard a testimony in this Committee about a week or
so ago about a guy, it took him 3 years to fire. I talked to a
very, very successful businessman at breakfast yesterday, and
he said, if we have a guy who is not performing, we get rid of
him in 3 minutes. We need to make the right decision. So, my
first question, and I apologize if I pronounce your name wrong,
Mr. Schatz?
Mr. Schatz. Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire. So, thank you for your work to find ways to
make the government more efficient, but I wish I could have
asked this to the Governor, but she had three Presidential
disasters declared in her state. And what are some things that
you think we could have done better, more efficient, if we
would have returned that power to the actual states or to the
governors when they have these disasters?
Mr. Schatz. Well, I think President Trump initially talked
about eliminating FEMA, but then he said he would like to
reallocate that money back to the states. The first line in any
kind of disaster is local officials. FEMA comes in late. It
takes a while to get the money. There is a lot of red tape. I
think it is an area that absolutely needs to be examined. By
the way, the other way to address this is to set up a Federal
fund that Congress provides every year so that you do not have
to have these special appropriations, supplemental
appropriations, that then add on other funding for things that
have nothing to do with the initial disaster, and a lot of
states have these rainy day or reserve funds. I think that
would address the different aspect of emergency spending, but
it would also reduce the need to have FEMA run out there every
time something happens.
Mr. McGuire. That makes a lot of sense. When is the last
time our government passed a budget for Congress?
Mr. Schatz. It has only been done 4 times, I believe, since
1974.
Mr. McGuire. Would you agree at the rate that we are
growing government, that we are in danger of a sovereign debt
crisis?
Mr. Schatz. Well, it is $36 trillion now, going to grow by
$2 trillion annually over the next 10 years. And yes, everybody
says, oh, when is it going to happen, but we are really robbing
our children and grandchildren of their future when we keep
doing this.
Mr. McGuire. Yes. If we can make one best decision to fix
this, what would you do?
Mr. Schatz. Oh, part of what this Committee is doing today
is determine which programs are essential, which are functions
that only the government should be doing and if the private
sector can do it. President Reagan talked about the Yellow
Pages test. Now, there are no more yellow pages, but pretty
common sense to have a business answer or have the private
sector do something, usually it is more efficient or at least
match them, see which performs better.
Mr. McGuire. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Bell.
Mr. Bell. Thank you. Today marks just over 2 weeks since
the Trump Administration took office. In the last 16 days, we
have witnessed an unprecedented, full-blown attack on Federal
workers and the services they provide to people at home in our
districts, a power grab by the DOGE and unelected officials,
like Elon Musk, that have the ear of the President. So, to my
colleagues, I am not surprised by the President's executive
orders, but as a prosecutor, the rule of law matters.
I hear about telework and we need to get people back to
work, but several of my colleagues and myself went to USAID,
and the Administration had told them to telework and to stay
home. So, I am a bit confused on the value of these arguments,
or what have you. The President has instituted a hiring freeze,
slapped Federal workplaces with hostile and counterproductive
policy changes, took action to potentially purge large swaths
of the Federal workforce, and weaponize career professionals by
threatening involuntary reassignments. Trump also sent Federal
employees an email offering them free pay and benefits until
September 2025, if they agree to resign on by February 6. Dr.
Resh, will this approach lead to the retention of our best and
brightest Federal workers?
Dr. Resh. No, it will not. When they have blanket fires,
again, the people who stay are likely to be the poorest
performers. The ones that go under those conditions are likely
to be those that are more competitive on an occupational job
market, and so, therefore, it will likely lead to brain drain
as opposed to the retention of the best employees.
Mr. Bell. And let me ask you this. What would accepting
this offer mean for Federal workers across the country,
including the nearly 13,000 Federal workers in my district?
Dr. Resh. Well, first of all, I am not sure that accepting
it is legal in terms of saying that if you do not do it by
February 6, but if you do do it, that you will be put on
administrative leave and paid through September 30. I believe
the cap on any type of action like that is $20,000. That would
not meet the several months that most employees are using.
Mr. Bell. Trump also took the----
Dr. Resh. I mean, already making. Sorry. Sorry.
Mr. Bell. That is OK. Trump also took the unprecedented and
illegal move of freezing trillions of dollars in Federal
funding, throwing the entire country in the chaos. I spoke with
Dr. Kendra Holmes, head of Affinia Healthcare, who feared that
this would impact their ability to provide essential and
critical care at their community health centers. I spoke with
Dwayne Butler, the CEO of People's Health Centers in St. Louis,
who said the action would have a significant adverse impact on
not only healthcare centers, but so many other federally funded
companies and programs. The Missouri Department of Elementary
and Secondary Education had to pause payments to daycare
providers, and school districts in St. Louis County were
concerned about their ability to feed and support their
students. Dr. Resh, did the Administration's actions reflect
standard operating procedure for rightsizing our government?
Dr. Resh. No, they do not. In fact, they increase
inefficiencies. Many of our partners, whether they be private
sector partners, universities, nonprofits, first of all, have
to also pause their operations. They have uncertainty in the
reliability of the Federal Government as a partner, and, yes, I
think that is enough to get the picture.
Mr. Bell. Our Federal workers go to work every day
dedicated to serving the American people. They are the reason
that communities across the country receive critical Federal
funds that support healthcare, safety, education, and
infrastructure. They deliver congressionally mandated services
and administer congressionally directed funds. The Trump
Administration should be supporting them in their mission to
deliver the best possible services to the American people, not
making that mission impossible. We cannot and will not allow a
takeover of our government or our democracy. Thank you, and I
yield my time to the Ranking Member.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the gentleman for what he just said,
and I know that my constituents, as well as his, who work for
the Federal Government, appreciate it. Thank you.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Gill from Texas.
Mr. Gill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
putting on this hearing. You know what? It is great to be on
the side of the aisle after having won a massive mandate from
the American people, President Trump, of course, winning not
only the Electoral College, but the popular vote, delivering us
a Majority in the House and in the Senate. It is kind of funny
to me because we have seen such outrage over DOGE, as if this
is something that is new.
Whenever I have been talking to my constituents in North
Texas for months and months and months about President Trump
coming to the White House and getting Elon Musk involved in
cleaning up waste in our Federal Government, it seems to me
that leftists are apoplectic, not because our tax dollars are
being wasted on idiotic things, but because all of it is being
exposed all of the sudden, which I think is certainly a
beautiful thing. So much of this government waste has been
operating in the shadows where the American people do not know
about it and has been largely unaccounted for, and so many of
these programs would not exist and will not exist now that they
are being exposed.
I could give so many examples of wasteful spending, but I
would like to name just a few and get you all's opinion on
these. Just recently, the Department of Health and Human
Services spent over $400,000 studying whether lonely rats seek
cocaine more often than happy rats do. Mr. Schatz, thank you
for being here. I would like to ask you, do you think that that
is a responsible use of taxpayer dollars?
Mr. Schatz. No, it is not, and those are the examples that
get people interested in doing more about wasteful spending.
They are silly, but it is where their money is going.
Mr. Gill. That is exactly right, and, Mr. Resh, let me ask
you, do you think that it is responsible for the Federal
Government to tax working-class American citizens to pay for
studies that cost over $400,000, asking whether lonely rats
seek cocaine more often than happy rats do?
Dr. Resh. I have no position on that particular policy. I
would need to know more.
Mr. Gill. You have no position on whether we should be----
Dr. Resh. I would need to know much more----
Mr. Gill [continuing]. Spending taxpayer dollars getting
rats high on cocaine?
Dr. Resh. I know that addiction is an important problem,
and if it leads to insights that lead to reductions in
addiction, I am sure that it has a multiplying effect. If that
is the case, you would have to see the indicator.
Mr. Gill. I agree. I am going to reclaim my time here. I
agree that addiction is a very serious problem, but I doubt
that the plumbers, and electricians, and working-class citizens
of North Texas, that I represent, are going to be very happy
whenever they find out that they are paying to get rats high.
Let me give you another example. We have recently spent
$123,000 to teach youth in Kyrgyzstan how to go viral. Mr.
Schatz, do you think that that is a good use of taxpayer
dollars?
Mr. Schatz. No, I do not.
Mr. Gill. I do not either. What about you, Mr. Resh?
Dr. Resh. I have no position.
Mr. Gill. No position. OK. Got it. Let us do another one
then. We have recently spent over $3 million from the
Department of State for girl-centered climate action. Mr.
Schatz, is that an appropriate use of our tax dollars?
Mr. Schatz. I do not think so.
Mr. Gill. Mr. Resh?
Dr. Resh. No position.
Mr. Gill. No position. Got it. What about, you know, over
the past 4 years, the United States has had a grotesque border
crisis that was created by the Federal Government in the Biden
administration. Nevertheless, we spent over $2 million for
border security in Paraguay. Mr. Schatz, let me ask you, do you
think that that is an appropriate use, given the context of
American taxpayer dollars?
Mr. Schatz. Well, only if it impacted immigrants or
whatever you want to call them, people coming to the United
States illegally. That might have some merit, but it depends on
the purpose.
Mr. Gill. I agree. What about you, Mr. Resh?
Dr. Resh. Again, it depends on the purpose and the outcome.
Mr. Gill. Got it. I think that that is incredibly
enlightening. You know, over the past couple weeks really, we
have seen all of the nonsensical areas that we found that our
tax dollars have gone to. Our taxpayer dollars, we just found
out today, are being sent to left-wing media outlets, like
Politico and the BBC. We have known for a long time that our
tax dollars are funding NPR and PBS. We have seen our tax
dollars go to left-wing NGOs. And I think that the takeaway is
that large portions of the left's institutional ecosystem are
dependent upon taxpayer subsidies, and I think that that is a
problem. I am thrilled DOGE is here because we are going to get
rid of it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield my time.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Ms. Simon.
Ms. Simon. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Ranking Member,
and thank you, witnesses, for coming to speak with us today. I
really appreciate the conversation, and like much of the
testimony and conversations I am hoping to have and hear during
my time in Oversight, I think that there are spaces where we
should all agree government should be more efficient,
absolutely. As someone who went through college and had to
bring my baby to childcare, I get it. I understand. And I
remember when that childcare was shut down, I could not go to
class. I could not go to my night job. I get it. I am right
there with so much of the conversation.
What is interesting, though, to me, is last week when I
returned to my district, I went to go visit, like many Members,
organizations that are providing work on the ground for almost
vulnerable populations. I was prepared to offer a check that an
organization, East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation, had
earned through a grant process to extend housing to elderly
Asian Americans in the East Bay. Again, these are the
descendants of the folks who built the West, elderly folks
seeking and needing low-income housing. Clearly, they are not
going to get that money right now. Housing is on the line, as
is child care, as is Medicaid, as is Medicare. After this
meeting, I will go and visit the president of a children's
hospital. He is in my office right now, and I went to go
literally sit with the folks in the NICU last week. Care is in
jeopardy. There is a heart transplant that is in jeopardy, a
small child. I would like for us to look in the faces of that
parent.
What is really interesting to me--I actually have a
question for you, Dr. Resh. Like you, I have had this amazing
benefit to study government budgeting. I have an M.P.A. with a
focus on municipal and Federal finance. I have a lot to learn,
as we all do. But in understanding where we are in this push by
DOGE and our colleagues to look at government spending, which I
agree we have got to figure it out, I am curious because this
rip-off we are talking about. Again, halting essential services
for people to live in communities--where there is waste, let us
get rid of it--but by freezing basic services?
I want to ask you this. By weakening the country's social
service structure within a week, causing chaos, would you agree
with me that instead of going after the Department of
Education, again, if you have a young woman in college and she
is abused, the Department of Education has an infrastructure to
investigate that rape. I can go on and on. They do. We get rid
of the Department of Ed, what happens there? Instead of going
after the Department of Ed and USAID, wouldn't it make a lot of
sense for us to think about other areas that are right in our
face?
Listen, the constituents of California's 12th District are
paying over $6 billion in tax dollars for DoD. That could pay
for 35,000 registered nurses per year and salaries of 50,000
elementary school teachers. If we are serious, sir, about
rightsizing our government, I would recommend that we start
there in an institution, in a Department that has failed seven
audits--seven audits--with an estimated multitrillion dollars
of waste and abuse in contracts that go to private companies. I
would love to know, Dr. Resh, your thoughts are on where we
should start.
Dr. Resh. Congresswoman, thank you for the question. I
would just like to note that throughout this testimony, I have
been asked questions about a very, very insignificant
proportion of our Federal budget, and that is domestic
discretionary spending. If the Committee is serious about
rightsizing government in terms of dollars, that very tiny
proportion of our overall Federal budget has seemed to be the
focus throughout this meeting. A $14,000 grant to something
through AID is nothing compared to the nondiscretionary funds.
But if we were talking about the Department of Defense, it is
not subject to some of the same scrutiny as well as these
programs that offer social services, and so on down the line.
Ms. Simon. Thank you to all the witnesses that came today
and thank you, Dr. Resh, for your answer. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The Chair recognizes Mr. Jack from Georgia.
Mr. Jack. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
letting me get a little exercise this morning. I appreciate
that. I want to start by saying, throughout this hearing, I
have heard over and over and over again from our colleagues on
the other side, Elon Musk's name invoked, and to me, it rings
very similar to what I experienced over the last 9 years I have
worked for President Trump. It seems like the Democrat playbook
from 2015 through 2025 has been to singularly target one
individual and over and over and over, repeat talking points
against that individual, and some pre-political advice, in
2016, it did not work. In 2020, House Republicans gained seats.
In 2022, we gained seats. In 2024, Donald Trump delivered one
of the most impressive historic landslide victories we have
ever seen, and it is because he offers solutions to the
American people, and that is exactly what we, House
Republicans, are doing.
I want to spend my time today engaging with Mr. Schatz,
talking about a solution that I campaigned on, something that
really resonated with the constituents across my district. And
I will predicate by noting I am probably one of the few Members
on this Committee who actually was a Federal employee. From
2017 to 2021, I served in the Executive Office of the President
as the President's White House Political Director. And one of
the things that I was tasked with while working for the
President was helping move departments and agencies outside of
Washington, DC, so that they could be headquartered in areas
that are more reflective of the people they are targeting or
designed to serve.
And, Mr. Schatz, in your testimony, I very much appreciated
you noting that 17 of the 24 agencies only use an average of 25
percent of Agency headquarters office space, American taxpayers
paying for office space that is not being used, and it is one
of the things that I am very passionate about. In 2019, we
relocated large agencies in the Department of the Interior to
Colorado. We found a lot of success in doing so. So, I just
would love to get your thoughts and comments on that. I think
that is an innovative solution that this Congress can move
forward and something President Trump campaigned on, and I am
so proud the American people gave him the victory and
affirmation for that.
Mr. Schatz. Well, thank you, Congressman, and we completely
agree with that concept because it would enable the Federal
Government to work more closely with state agencies that, in
many cases, perform a lot of the same functions, and that is
another form of duplication. That is not necessarily turning
those functions over to the states, but it is determining where
it might be more effective and more efficient, and deliver
those services. And just briefly, the objective of an agency
should be to deliver a service to someone, period, and then
determine how that gets done and then determine how much it
costs, and the reverse is true. It is spend the money, and if
that does not work, spend more money, and do not take the time
to figure out what works. This would be very helpful to
reaching that conclusion.
Mr. Jack. Well, in that vein, and as my esteemed colleague
to my left, Mr. Gill, noted, all the money previously spent by
USAID, I have to imagine the people of Texas's 26th
congressional District or Georgia's 3d congressional District
would not have made those decisions had they been employees at
that Agency headquarters.
And in that vein, I just want to also note for the record,
you would have to drive an hour from where we sit right now to
reach a precinct that voted for President Trump. Yet, of
course, we saw a landslide victory across our country. To me,
you need a Federal workforce that is reflective of the balance
that America is, and in this general area, we have got 90
percent-95 percent Democrat participation in elections. To me,
that is from where our Federal workforce is coming. That is why
we have so many problems that we have discussed here today.
I also want to note, Mr. Schatz, your leadership at
Citizens Against Government Waste has led to trillions of
dollars of savings for Americans. You have done an incredible
service to your country, and I just want to close with a final
question to you. Based on your wealth and knowledge and
experience, what are the most prominent patterns or locations
that you find waste, fraud, and abuse in our Federal
Government? Any advice to the Committee before I finish?
Mr. Schatz. Well, it runs across all agencies. And I would
note on the Department of Defense, when the Grace Commission
made its recommendations and found $424.4 billion in savings,
25 percent of that was in the Department of Defense. As has
been noted, they failed an audit. Joint Strike Fighter is
pretty much of a mess. Less than half, about 55 percent, of
them are available for use, so the procurement system needs a
lot of reform. Information technology, 80 percent of the
systems are legacy systems, and some of them, they are so old
that you cannot find people to fix them or service them, and
that is an investment, in our view, that is worth making.
Upgrade those systems, and then people will be able to find out
from the click of a button, you know, what is going on with
their money, and that would be extremely helpful for
transparency, accountability, and more efficiency.
Mr. Jack. Well, I am grateful for your testimony today. I
hope every Committee Member reads all the innovative solutions
that you have offered us. And likewise, I hope my colleagues
join me in helping relocate our departments and agencies
outside of Washington, DC. I yield back to our distinguished
Chairman, Mr. Comer.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. The Chair
recognizes Mr. Min from California.
Mr. Min. Mr. Schatz, Dr. Resh, thank you for testifying
today. Now, this hearing is happening because of Republican
concerns about the size of our government, but I would submit
they are missing basic economics here and, particularly, the
chapter on public goods. As a reminder, public goods are things
that governments provide that we all benefit from. National
defense, infrastructure, education, police, firefighting, air
traffic control, all examples of public goods. And the most
important thing to recognize is that these are all things that
private markets typically do not provide on their own. So, when
we are talking about making cuts to the FAA budget for air
traffic controllers, understand that no one is going to fill
that gap to make our skies safer. When we cut the budget for
FDA and USDA inspections, no one is going to step up to come
and ensure that our foods and drugs are safe. That is why the
government provides these things.
Now, I realize it makes for a great talking point to talk
about getting rid of waste in government, and I am sure there
are many examples we can point to. I know my colleagues have
pointed to some, if we look closely enough. Just as I am sure
we can find lots of examples of waste and corruption in large
private companies as well, but here is the thing. The reality
is that what you are looking for is just not possible at the
scale you are talking about.
Elon Musk and many of my colleagues on the Republican side
of the aisle have publicly stated that their intention is to
cut $2 trillion from the Federal budget. The problem is that
this is just bad math, and, yes, I am Asian, and yes, I am
pretty good at math, but you do not have to be very good at
math to understand this.
[Chart]
Mr. Min. The chart behind me illustrates very clearly the
entire domestic discretionary budget that is the primary focus
of today's hearing is only $917 billion. You can cut
everything--education, food safety, air traffic safety,
wildfire prevention, affordable housing, the FBI, the DOJ--and
you are still not even halfway to the amount that Elon Musk and
the Republicans are trying to cut. You can fire every single
person in the Federal Government. That is 4 percent of the
Federal budget, a tiny fraction of what you are looking to cut
right now. You can cut all military spending, $805 billion. You
are still not there.
So, let us be realistic and talk about what is really at
stake here. When we are talking about $2 trillion, we are
talking about nondiscretionary spending, which is a fancy way
of saying Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. These are
earned benefits, the checks that my mom and dad rely on for
their retirement, that your moms and dads and grandmas and
grandpas rely on, that they spent their lifetimes paying into.
And let us be clear: this is what Elon Musk and many of my
Republican colleagues are targeting right now. They have made
it very clear with their statements, such as when Nancy Mace in
March 2023 called for a huge cut to Social Security saying,
``Everything is on the table.''
And so that brings me to my first question. Dr. Resh, I
assume you are familiar with the United States Constitution?
Dr. Resh. Yes, sir.
Mr. Min. Article I, Section 1 states, ``All legislative
powers herein granted shall be vested in the Congress of the
United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of
Representatives.'' Article I, Section 9 gives exclusive
authority for appropriations to Congress. Are you aware of any
provisions in the Constitution that allow the President of the
United States to unilaterally take away Congress' legislative
and appropriations authority?
Dr. Resh. I am not.
Mr. Min. Are you aware of any provisions in the
Constitution that allow a special governmental employee
appointed by the President to take away Congress' powers?
Dr. Resh. I am not.
Mr. Min. Are you aware of any references in the
Constitution to efficiency?
Dr. Resh. I am not.
Mr. Min. That is right because they do not exist. Because
efficiency, while important, is not something that the founders
thought was a constitutional priority. Founders were very aware
that democracy was a messy and inefficient way of running a
government. It would be far more efficient to have a monarch or
dictator decide how to fund programs rather than have 435
members of the House and 100 senators debate and deliberate and
vote about it. But this country was not founded as a monarchy,
not founded as a dictatorship because we expressly decided that
democratic representation, as inefficient as it might be, was
more important than pure efficiency, and that is the point that
my Republican colleagues need to recognize.
We can debate our views on Social Security and Medicare and
government spending. In fact, it is critically important that
we do that, but those debates belong here in Congress. And we
should not lose sight of the fact that Elon Musk, an unelected
billionaire, is playing God with the Federal Government,
deciding at whim which programs and agencies he wants to
``delete'' at the flip of a switch. Elmo has gained control
over our Federal payment systems. He has universally declared
that certain agencies we have created here in Congress are
terminated. He has locked Federal employees out of their
systems, and he is threatening to end Federal disbursements
that he does not like. This is all illegal and grossly
unconstitutional. The United States of America is not a
monarchy, it is not a dictatorship, and Elon Musk is breaking
the law repeatedly by taking Congress' legislative authority.
So, to my Republican colleagues, I want to plead with you.
This is not a partisan issue. It is your authority here in
Congress that is being stolen by Elon Musk right now. If you do
not speak up, you are going to permanently lose your
legislative authority. We all swore an oath to support and
defend the Constitution of the United States, and that is what
I am asking you all to do. We have an obligation to uphold the
rule of law and defend the Constitution against this
unprecedented assault. I yield to the Ranking Member.
Mr. Connolly. I have 3 seconds, so thank you. I thank the
gentleman for his observations and for his cogent points.
Mr. Min. I also would like to request unanimous consent to
enter into the record a New York Times article titled, ``U.S.
Agencies Fund and Fight with Elon Musk. A Trump Presidency
Could Give Him More of Them''----
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Min [continuing]. Which describes how Elon Musk's work
``promised $3 billion across nearly 100 different contracts
last year with 17 Federal agencies.''
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered. We got it.
Mr. Min. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Connolly. I also have a unanimous consent request, Mr.
Chairman. I ask unanimous consent that the statements of the
American Federation of Government Employees and National Active
and Retired Federal Employees be entered into the record.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Connolly. And I further ask unanimous consent that the
article, ``DOGE Aides Search Medicare Agency,'' also be entered
into the record.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the Chair.
Chairman Comer. The Chair organizes Ms. Tlaib.
Ms. Tlaib. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Since we are
entering items to the record, it is really important, as I do a
lot of these question lines, to center it around my
constituents and my residents, who very much feel like there is
so much instability and chaos right now. So, if I may, I would
like to submit a letter from the CEO and founder of Cody Rouge
Action Alliance in the 12th congressional District in Michigan,
just about the freezing of the funds and what it meant for her
seniors and many of the community members that she supports.
Many of them are retirees. Many of them rely heavily on this
Agency to, again, supplement the high cost of living right now
for many of our families. And so if I may, I would ask
unanimous consent to, again, send this letter.
Chairman Comer. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Tlaib. Thank you. You know, I want to cut through the
B.S. because I am from Detroit, and we like to speak truth to
power and be very honest. You know, the American people feel
very much we are in a constitutional crisis. They cannot
understand, you know, this billionaire. I do not even know
really how to describe him. Of course he is the richest man in
the world, and to think that he can just walk in to an agency
that I can tell you for many of my families from Social
Security and Medicare, I mean, it is literally part of how they
survive in our country, and it is not just about the private
information. It is about this person--the fact that they did
not get to elect him. He is not held accountable to them, the
community, the public, and so they are very much living in fear
right now, and we are in a constitutional crisis.
One of the things that I continue to talk to our Ranking
Member about and thinking about, even the folks that voted for
the President and others, if I was to ask the American people,
do you think Elon Musk cares about you? Do they think that he
cares about your disabled child that relies on Department of
Education services through the IDEA Act? Do you think he cares
for any of our families right now, no matter how hard they
work, they are still in survivor mode, not thriving in our
country? The disconnect that his own lived experience will
never ever be able to connect to that family in North Dakota,
to the teacher in Detroit, to the child living and trying to
survive through the education program, living with autism, and
so much more. And so I am just curious. I mean, really, do you
think Elon Musk cares about the American people, Mr. Schatz?
Mr. Schatz. I do not think that is the issue. I think the
question is what is going to be done about the $36 trillion
debt and the $2 trillion debt.
Ms. Tlaib. Yes. So, you want to talk about the debt, but
the Congress, they are in control. Why not go through the
public process? If you want to make cuts, then vote to cut it.
Why are you having this person do it? Are you giving him your
power as an elected person representing 750,000 people? You
represent the equal number of people as I do. I want to get a
chance to vote on this, hear from my constituents, have it be
done in a public process. You want to deal with it, you are in
power. You have a trifecta--the White House, the Senate, and
the House--but, no, you want to do it this way. The cruelty of
it, the fact that even the American people, no matter in their
political affiliation, I am telling you right now, feel like
they have no control over the decisions being made. Why?
Because Members of Congress have circumvented, said, hey, we
are good, go ahead and do it for us, go ahead, even though they
know it is going to impact farmers, veterans, disabled
residents, folks living with disability, and so much more.
These infrastructures that they do not understand support all
of our families.
So, you can keep talking about the debt. They have control.
They can deal with the debt if that is really what they want to
do. Instead, they are just yielding their power to Elon Musk,
who has, again, been unelected, and we can continue to say
that. But one of the things, you can go around the country, is
they do not want Elon Musk making that decision. They want
their Member of Congress that is elected making that decision,
Mr. Schatz. That is the problem. And I will never, and Mr.
Chair knows this, vote your district. Come here and vote your
district. If your district wants you to cut these various
programs, go cut the Department of Education, then go ahead and
vote on it. Introduce a bill to cut the Department of
Education. You are just literally giving it to this person. It
does not make any sense.
Dr. Resh, do you think the American people think that Elon
Musk cares about them?
Dr. Resh. I do not think the American people should really
care what he thinks. They should have someone making decisions
who has taken an oath to the Constitution.
Ms. Tlaib. That is actually very important, isn't it? The
Constitution gives Congress control over the spending, not the
President and certainly not Elon Musk. And the American people
need to understand why that balance of government is there. It
is to protect all of us from these kinds of decisions that are
hurting people now. And, Mr. Chair, just know this: this is the
same man that continues to want to cut, cut, cut, but he has
$20 billion in Federal contracts. Can I get our money back
because he is the richest man on earth, and he is still taking
a handout from us, the public. $20 billion, Mr. Chair. If it is
really about that, and not about hurting these public
infrastructures, which really are critical and important for, I
guess, the most vulnerable. And really, you would be surprised
how many people in your community and in your districts, no
matter, again, political affiliation, will be harmed by these
decisions that, again, overpass the congressional public
process. It is our constitutional duty and responsibility to be
able to authorize spending and cuts. We should be able to do
it, not Elon Musk. With that, I yield.
Chairman Comer. The gentlelady yields. That concludes our
questions. In closing, I want to thank our witnesses once again
for their testimony today. I am now going to yield to the
Ranking Member for some brief closing remarks.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the Chair, and I thank our witnesses.
We have spent the entirety of this hearing under the rubric of
rightsizing government as if we all know presumptively what the
right size is, which, of course, nobody does. In fact, it is
not even necessarily a sensical question. But we have ignored
half of what should be involved in any enterprise, business,
nonprofit, or government, and that is the revenue side of the
picture. You cannot rightsize, whatever that means, government
by only looking at expenditures and investments. You have got
to look at how we finance it. Does anyone think that Elon Musk,
in running Tesla, had a meeting when he took it over and said
to his management crew, whatever we do, we are never again
discussing or modifying the price of a Tesla, whatever it is
today, it is frozen forever, and all company profits will be
derived from expenditure cuts? Of course not.
I heard the Governor of Iowa say we ought to run government
like a business. Well, then run it like a business, and that
means there are two sides to the ledger, revenue as well as
expenditure. I also heard the Governor of Iowa say that there
is nothing wrong with looking at the enterprise and making
recommendations. I could not agree more, but that is not what
Elon Musk and company are doing. They are taking a wrecking
ball to the Federal Government. They are firing people. They
are intruding in very sensitive data bases. They are
threatening to close down entire departments and agencies of
the Federal Government without any mandate, without any
confirmation by the U.S. Senate, and without a howdy-do by the
Congress of the United States. This Committee and Congress
cannot be supine in the face of that threat. We must play our
legitimate role, and if my colleagues on the other side can
muster a majority to in fact shut down these agencies, then so
be it, but it cannot be something delegated to an unelected
billionaire oligarch from South Africa. I yield back.
Chairman Comer. The gentleman yields back. I must say,
there has been a virus that has been spreading throughout the
inside of Congress for the past 4 years. It is called Trump
derangement syndrome, but it appears over the last week it has
mutated now into Musk derangement syndrome. And all we have
here is a business guy, an outsider, much like many outsiders
and many business people on the local and state levels all over
America that have been asked essentially to serve on a board to
make recommendations, to make government more efficient. What a
noble idea on the Federal level.
And we welcome Elon Musk. We welcome any individual in
America who has ideas on making government more efficient. But
I will say this publicly, to make government more efficient and
to live within our means, which is what the American people
voted for in November, we are going to have to make cuts. We
are going to have to reduce the size of government, and that is
not going to be an easy task. It is easy to spend money.
Everybody is popular when they are spending unlimited amounts
of money and doing check presentations, and things like that,
but when it gets to making cuts, that is tough. That is what
people in the private sector have to do every day. That is what
people who work and pay taxes and struggle to make ends meet
have to do every day. They have to make tough financial
decisions.
Congress has been immune for that for a long time, but the
day has come and the American people have spoken to where we
are going to have to tighten our belts, and that is what, at
least my side of the aisle, is committed to doing, and we are
going to work with DOGE. We are going to work with the Trump
Administration. We are going to work with all of his Cabinet
secretaries. We are willing to work with Democrats across the
aisle on sincere ideas to make government more efficient, to
end duplicative services, to reduce wasteful spending. That is
what we want to do. That is what this hearing was about. And I
want to thank our witnesses who came here today to testify
about that.
With that and without objection, all Members have 5
legislative days within which to submit materials and
additional written questions for the witnesses, which will be
forwarded to the witnesses.
If there is no further business, without objection, the
Committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:44 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[all]